UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 


FROM   THE    LIBRARY  OF 

DR.  JOSEPH  LECONTE., 

GIFT  OF  MRS.  LECONTE. 

No. 


ON 

It 

THE  RELATIVE  ADVANTAGE 


OF 


TUBS  WITH  BOTTOMS 


AND 


TUBS  WITHOUT 


BEING    A    RAMBLING    LETTER    FROM   A    COOPERS 

APPRENTICE    TO    A    8WEDENBORGIAN 

CLERGYMAN 


"  To  be  merely  aware  of  these  truths  and  yet  fail  to  see  them  in 
applications  to  things  that  stand  out  bodily  before  the  eye,  is  only  to  be 
aware  of  them  as  abstract  entities ;  and  these  last  are  things  that 
abide  with  a  man  no  longer  than  as  long  as  he  is  thinking  about 
them ;  they  are  mere  matters  of  analysis  derived  from  the  science 
of  metaphysics.  *  *  *  For  an  acquaintance  with  matters  that 
are  merely  abstract  is  like  some  airy  thing  that  wings  itself  away ; 
but  abstract  matters,  when  they  are  applied  to  things  that  belong  to  this 
world  of  ours,  become  like  a  thing  espied  by  the  physical  eye,  which 
then  sticks  forever  in  the  memory,"— SWEDENBORG  ;  Divine  Love  and 


PRINTED    FOR    THE    AUTHOR 

FOR     SALE     AT     2O      COOPER     UNION 

NEW  YORK 


C.  G.  Burgoyne's  Printing  Business,  146-150  Centre  Street,  N.  Y. 


A  FORE- WORD 


The  following  letter  was  begun  as  a  private  communica- 
tion, and  was  not  intended  for  other  than  private  circulation. 
This  is  my  only  excuse,  if  an  excuse  at  all,  for  the  mangled 
and  most  unsatisfactory  manner  in  which  I  have  treated  of 
the  subjects  which  it  considers.  Those  subjects  are : 

1.  Degrees,  discrete  and  continuous,  and  the  differences 
between  the  two  kinds  of  degrees. 

2.  Order,  successive  and  simultaneous,  and  the  difference 
between  the  two  kinds  of  order. 

3.  The  origin  of  all  made  substance,  as  having  come  about 
once  for  all,  and  at  the  beginning ;  and  as  having  consisted 
merely  in  an  off-throw,  from  God,  of  substance  which  was 
living  substance  in  His  Body  before  it  was  thrown  off,  but 
became  dead  as  soon  as  thrown  off,  and  thenceforth  remained 
dead  and  spiritually  inert,  and  wholly  unneeding  any  Divine 
upholding  for  the  preservation  of  its  reality. - 

4.  The  presence  of  God  in  all  made  substance,  as  being  a 
presence  of  His  Uses  only,  and  not  in  the  least  a  presence  of 
His  substance;  no  portion  of  made  substance  being  any 
longer  such  substance  as  is  He,  yet  it  all  being  not  less  real 
than  is  His  substance. 

5.  The  nature  of  the  Life-current  as  being  the  vibrator}' 
beat  or  swing  which  is  constantly  maintained  by  God  in  such 
organized  forms  of  dead  substance  as  possess  spiritual  sub- 
stance capable  of  vibrating  to  that  swing ;  that  swing  being 
a  swing  which  goes  on  only  in  spiritual  substance ;  and  that 
Life-current  being  merely  a  stream  of  motion,  and  not  being 
in  the  least  a  stream  of  substance. 

6.  The  nature  of  Action  and  He-action. 

186718 


7.  The  essential  distinction  between,  on  the  one  hand,  that 
kind  of  presence  of  one  being  with  another  which  might  be 
imagined  as  consisting  in  the  presence  of  the  substance  of  the 
first  being  in  the  substance  of  the  second  being;  and,  on  the 
other  hand,  that  kind  of  presence  of  one  being  with  another 
which  consists,  not  in  the  presence  of  the  substance  of  the 
first  being,  but  in  a  presence  of  an  Activity  or  Power  exerted 
by  the  first  being  upon  the  second,  resulting  in  the  produc- 
tion of  an  Image  of  the  first  being  in,  or  upon,  the  second. 
Also  the  impossibility  of  the  first-mentioned  kind  of  presence. 

8.  The  analyzing  of  Motion  in  general,  and  of  the  partic- 
ular motions  recognized  as  Light  and  Sound,  into  (1)  mere 
Agitation,  without  reference  to  the  form  or  mode  of  agita- 
tion ;    (2)  Form  or  Mode  of  Agitation,  without  reference  to 
actual  agitation  ;   (3)  Agitation  according  to  form  or  Mode ; 
which  is  produced  by  a  combination  of  the  two  preceding 
factors  into  a  general  result.   Also,  the  illustration  of  mental 
and  spiritual  facts,  including  the  nature  of  Life  itself,  by 
means  of  the  phenomena  called  Sound  and  Light,  to  which 
(but  maintained  in  a  discretely  finer  atmosphere  than  either 
the  aerial  or  the  ethereal)  Life  closely  corresponds. 

An  understanding  of  these  subjects  is  essential  to  any  un- 
derstanding of  Swedenborg.  A  fair  understanding  of  some 
of  them  comes  by  intuition  to  all  practical  persons ;  and  comes 
to  these  without  any  active  thought — comes  indeed  in  the 
absence  of  thought;  these  concepts  being  tacit  concepts. 
And  a  much  better  understanding,  upon  the  whole,  comes  to 
those  persons  who  do  not  know  how  to  talk  about  them,  than 
to  those  who  know  how.  In  general,  it  can  be  said,  that  il- 
literate people  understand  most  of  these  things  pretty  well ; 
and  the  reason  is,  that  in  their  daily  life  they  are  familiar 
with  truths  that  are  the  same  with  these  concepts,  though 
expressed  upon  a  lower  and  more  obvious  plane.  Illiterate 
people  do  not  lose  their  thought  in  words ;  they  think  by 
things,  i.  e.,  by  visible  mental  pictures.  But  men  of  letters, 
if  they  are  not  at  the  same  time  men  of  a  practical  and  (I 


may  say)  mechanical  turn  of  mind,  rarely  think  by  mental 
pictures,  but  mostly  by  words,  and  they  lose  their  thought  in 
words,  and  are  unable  to  think  with  coherence  upon  any  of 
these  subjects,  because  these  subjects  are  deep — deeper  than 
Thought  for  the  most  part, — deep  as  Fact  itself. 

I  ought  perhaps  to  add,  as  a  further  excuse  for  the  un- 
satisfactory nature  of  the  treatment  I  give  these  subjects, 
that  in  truth  I  know  next  to  nothing  at  all  about  them. 
In  this  respect  I  shall  be  thought  to  differ  from  the  majority 
of  Swedenborg's  readers,  the  most  of  whom  I  am  told 
are  well  informed  in  regard  to  these  topics,  however  little  of 
such  information  may  thus  far  have  been  betrayed  by  them 
in  writing  or  in  conversation.  My  confession  of  my  own 
ignorance  may  serve  a  use,  viz.,  to  warn  the  reader  against 
accepting  any  theory  or  statement  which  he  shall  find  in  this 
letter,  unless  he  finds  it  applied — in  detail  and  in  every 
detail,  and  accurately  in  each  detail — to  Facts,  to  facts  in 
nature  apprehensible  by  some  one  of  the  five  bodily  senses, 
and  familiar  to  himself  by  daily  observation.  For  whatever 
effect  this  statement  of  my  views  may  produce  upon  the 
mind  of  any  reader — and  I  have  small  belief  that  it  will 
produce  much  effect — I  wish  that  such  effect  at  least  may 
not  be  that  of  causing  him  to  stand  still  farther  abstracted 
from  the  world  of  common  sense  and  common  experience 
than  at  present  he  may  chance  to  stand.  The  principles  of 
Swedenborg  are  principles  which  are  all-sublime ;  but  many 
of  the  principles  which  have  been  retailed  to  the  public  as 
his,  are,  in  my  opinion  and  in  that  of  some  other  persons, 
entirely  opposed  to  common  rationality  in  respects  quite 
independent  of  religious  belief.  The  misapprehension  of 
Swedenborg's  doctrines  by  many  of  his  followers  is  due,  I 
think,  to  several  causes.  One  is  the  total  ignorance  of 
science  joined  with  some  ignorance  of  Latin,  which  mostly 
has  obtained  with  his  translators.  The  other  is  the  tinge  of 
pantheism,  got  from  Berkeley,  with  which  the  earlier  trans- 
lators appear  to  have  entered  upon  the  study  of  Swedenborg, 


and  which  colored  the  earliest  translations  of  Swedenborg. 
This,  progressing  gradually,  has  finally  dyed  many  passages 
in  translation,  and  most  of  the  so-called  "  collateral  works  " 
in  English,  to  a  deep  pantheistic  black.  I  am  well  aware 
that  an  imputation  of  ignorance  of  Latin  will  be  more  or  less 
resented  by  men  some  of  whom  are  of  literary  culture.  It 
still  is  true  that  the  translations  are  filled  with  errors  such 
as  those  which  the  birch,  and  only  the  birch,  has  ever  been 
serviceable  in  extirpating.  Of  ten  thousand  illustrations,  let 
me  give  a  single  yet  well-nigh  all-pervading  one.  In  treating 
of  the  original  creation  of  the  substances  and  matters  in  the 
universe,  as  distinguished  from  the  constantly  repeated  crea- 
tion of  individual  living  creatures  by  the  ordinary  process  of 
reproduction,  Swedenborg  invariably  uses  the  tense  of  per- 
fectly completed  action ;  this  original  creation  having  been 
effected,  as  he  teaches,  not  in  Time,  but  at  the  very  begin- 
ning of  Time ;  thus,  before  all  times ;  and  having  been  brought 
about  by  successive  compositions  and  recompositions  of 
primary  particles  wrhich  for  this  purpose  were  taken  from 
the  circumambient  sphere  of  substances  that  had  been  ex- 
haled and  transpired  from  the  Body  of  the  Divine  Man. 
These  substances  had  ever  existed  in  that  Body.  In  that 
Body  they  had  not  been  made  out  of  nothing.  They  had 
not  been  made,  indeed,  at  all.  From  eternity  they  had  been. 
The  substance  of  God's  Body  they  had  been.  What  we  call 
"  creation  "  was  not  an  originating  of  those  substances.  It 
was  merely  an  evolution  of  them  out  of  the  Infinite — it  was 
a  finiting  of  them.  And  because  this  so-called  "  creation  of 
substance,"  but  really  change  of  state  or  quality  in  such  sub- 
stance, took  place  at  the  beginning  of  all  things,  thus,  before 
any  other  event  could  possibly  have  taken  place,  Sweden- 
borg, in  speaking  of  it,  uses  often  a  tense  denoting  a  time 
still  prior  to  that  denoted  by  the  tense  of  perfectly  completed 
action ;  he  uses  often  the  pluperfect  tense.  In  speaking  of 
it  he  uses  sometimes  the  active  voice  and  sometimes  the  pas- 
sive voice.  But  where  he  uses  the  passive  voice — creatus  est, 


was  created — the  translators,  all  eager  to  transmute  Sweden- 
borg's  straightforward  teaching  that  Matter  has,  since  crea- 
tion, nothing  of  God's  substance,  into  a  doctrine  setting 
forth  that  Matter  is  at  bottom  no  other  than  the  living 
God  Himself,  and  that  Matter's  visible  outside  is  but  a 
sort  of  Maya  or  Illusion  of  the  Senses,  and  that  the  only 
creation  is  a  steady  Causing-to-Seem, — the  translators  thus 
eager,  I  say,  have  changed  his  "  was  created "  to  an  "  is 
created  ;"  nor  do  I  lack  an  instance  in  which  the  perfect  tense 
active  (which,  as  Latin  scholars  know,  it  is  impossible  to 
mistake)  has  been  translated  into  a  present  passive,  in  order 
to  teach  a  constant  or  continuing  so-called  creation  of  all 
substances  and  matters.  Some  of  these  tense-errors  have  been 
corrected,  I  understand,  in  the  Swedenborg  Printing  and 
Publishing  Society's  latest  edition  of  The  Divine  Love  and 
Wisdom,  yet  against  great  opposition.  As  for  the  Latin 
passive  participle  denoting  (and  invariably  denoting) 
"wholly past  and  completed  action  suffered,"  this  participle 
has  by  all  of  them,  I  believe,  been  held  of  too  small  consequence 
for  notice,  but  has  been  boldly  extinguished,  and  the  English 
participle  denoting  a  still  continually  accomplishing  creation, 
or  creative  act  still  each  instant  undergone  or  suffered,  has 
been  substituted.  All  this,  in  order  to  twist  Swedenborg 
into  teaching  that  the  substance  of  the  Universe  was  not 
made  and  wholly  finished  before  Time  was,  but  is  made  at 
each  moment  of  time,  and  is  in  fact  inwardly  the  living  God, 
if  you  will  only  prick  it  deep  enough.  Thus  with  their 
traditions  have  they  brought  to  naught  the  commandment 
of  God  asset  forth  in  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis,  whose  teach- 
ing Swedenborg  strictly  follows ;  and  in  which,  as  I  am  inform- 
ed, the  Hebrew  tense  of  "  forever-completed-action  "  is  used, 
instead  of  that  tense  of  "  continuing  action "  for  which 
Swedenborg's  translators  mostly  contend.  What,  in  the 
Hebrew  as  well  as  in  the  English,  God  is  declared  to  have 
done,  these  translators  would  make  Him  to  be  now  about 
doing,  or  to  be  about  to  do. 


8 

"  The  heavens  and  the  earth  were  finished"  says  Genesis. 
"Finishing "is  "Uniting."  There  is  no  "beginning"  possi- 
ble for  anything,  save  a  beginning  as  the  Infinite.  There 
is  no  "  finishing  "  possible  for  anything,  save  in  and  by  its 
"  Uniting ; "  its  finiting — or  what  is  the  same,  its  "  finishing  " 
(Latin  finis,  an  end ;  finire,  to  bring  to  determination) — is  the 
un-infiniting  of  that  which  had  been  Infinite.  No  substance 
springs  from  nothing,  and  to  nothing  no  substance  can  turn. 
"  God  ended  the  work  which  He  had  made,"  says  Genesis. 
"  He  rested  from  all  his  work  which  He  had  made,"  says 
Genesis.  Not  so,  think  the  most  of  the  Swedenborgian 
writers.  The  substances  of  which  heaven  and  earth  were 
formed,  they  think  were  at  bottom  never  finited,  but  at  bot- 
tom are  still  the  Infinite ;  these  have  never  been  finished, 
but  He  is  ever  seeming  to  finish  them.  He  never  ended, 
they  think,  the  work  of  making  an  atom  of  substance.  The 
words  "  His  work  which  He  had  made  "  mean,  they  think, 
"  His  work  which  He  had  not  made,  but  was  only  beginning 
to  make,  or  rather  was  beginning  to  seem  to  make.'  "He 
rested  from  all  His  work  which  He  had  made,"  says  Genesis. 
"  Not  so  "  they  think ;  "  He  must  ever  be  tinkering  at  each 
atom  of  substance;  none  of  it  is  completed,  and  all  of  it  would 
plunge  into  nothingness,  did  He  not  forever  tinker  it." 

And  they  not  only  think  thus,  but  in  all  sincerity  they 
think  thus.  And  they  think  thus  because  they  are  sunk  in 
materialism,  and  cannot  think  of  anything  spiritual,  but  un- 
derstand in  a  material  sense  all  spiritual  things.  Whatever 
Swedenborg  says  of  God's  constant  sustentation  of  His 
creatures,  they  apply  to  that  mere  Stuff  which  requires  no 
sustentation ;  and  what  he  says  of  the  steadily  given  Life- 
motion,  they  turn  into  a  doctrine  which  teaches  that  each 
atom  of  substance  constantly  flares  forth  from  God  and  that 
its  flare  is  constantly  renewed.  The  making  new  of  "  all 
things,"  which  is  the  steady  stream  of  life-motion  pouring 
into  all  animated  creation,  they  think  means  a  steady  re- 
creation of  Matter  and  Substance.  The  "new  things,"  the 


9 

"  hidden  things,"  which  are  "  created  NOW  and  not  from 
the  beginning"  (Isaiah  XL VIII.,  6,  7),  to  wit,  the  things 
that  relate  to  the  Life-sphere  and  thereby  to  the  things  of 
Spirit,  they  turn  into  things  that  relate  to  the  Death-sphere 
and  to  the  world  of  Matter;  they  turn  the  ever  "new  things," 
the  ever  "  hidden  things,"  into  the  opposite  to  what  is  "  ever 
new  "  and  "  ever  hidden ;"  into  the  "  former  things,"  into 
the  things  which  God  "did  suddenly  "  and  at  "  the  begin- 
ning ;"  into  the  things  which  at  the  beginning  He  did  fairly 
and  completely  "  bring  to  pass  "  (Isaiah  XLVHL,  3 ;  Genesis 
I.,  1 ;  Genesis  H,  1,  2).  In  other  words,  they  turn  spiritual 
facts  into  the  grossest  materialism. 

Most  of  Swedenborg's  present  pupils,  I  believe,  profess 
Idealism  and  vaunt  its  glories.  They  will  stop  the  use  of 
this  word,  however,  as  soon  as  they  shall  have  read  him  so  far 
as  to  hit  upon  some  of  the  various  passages  in  which  he  con- 
demns idealism  and  describes  it  as  a  notion  of  the  inf  ernals. 
I  say  they  will  stop  the  use  of  the  word ;  but  they  may  con- 
tinue to  hold  to  the  theory.  Yet  is  there  not  a  true  idealism 
as  well  as  a  false  ?  Idealism  belongs  to  the  realm  of  Form 
and  Arrangement ;  it  does  not  belong  to  the  realm  of  Sub- 
stance. The  idealism  that  teaches  an  ideal  arrangement,  by 
the  Creator,  of  real  substances  which  He  has  separated  from 
Himself  and  thereby  finited,  and  which,  after  such  separa- 
tion, if  He  had  not  arranged  them  in  an  ideal  order,  would 
be  a  chaos,  is  a  time  and  heavenly  idealism.  Idealism  be- 
comes false  and  infernal  when  it  extirpates  real  substances, 
and  holds  the  Idea  to  be  antecedent  to  the  Substance,  and 
pretends  that  the  Idea  is  very  Substance.  Such  idealism  is, 
in  philosophy,  what  Faith  without  Love  is,  in  theology — a 
substitution  of  Form  for  Substance,  an  ideal  Arrangement  of 
somewhat  within  which  no  Substance  whatever  sits  or  re- 
sides. 

There  is  no  connection,  I  think,  between  the  doctrines  of 
Swedenborg  upon  these  fundamental  subjects  and  the  doc- 
trine of  the  majority  of  his  followers.  Whether  I  am  right  or 


10 

wrong  in  alleging  this,  may  appear  on  examining  the  con- 
siderations which  I  bring  forward  in  this  rapidly  written 
letter. 

Whenever  a  religious  body,  or  a  majority  large  enough  to 
sway  the  body,  discovers  a  blunder  to  which  it  has  become 
committed,  two  courses  lie  before  it.  The  first,  the  natural, 
the  obvious,  the  perhaps  invariable  course,  is  to  brazen  out 
the  blunder  and  decoy  attention  toward  some  other  than  the 
principal  matter.  It  is  usually  in  the  supposed  interests  of 
religion  in  general  and  of  that  religious  body  in  particular, 
that  this  course  is  taken.  The  other  course — a  divine  and 
perhaps  thus  far  untried  method  of  dealing  with  the 
proofs  of  a  theological  blunder — is  to  say  with  Anthony, 
promptly  and  from  the  heart, 

"  Who  tells  me  true,  though  in  his  tale  lie  Death 
I  hear  him  as  he  flattered" 

But  the  children  of  this  world  are  wiser  in  their  genera- 
tion than  the  children  of  light. 

In  respect  to  the  various  sins  I  shall  commit  against  the 
aesthetic,  whether  in  wording  or  in  typography,  let  me  say 
that  there  seems  to  be  only  a  choice  between  those  venial 
offenses  and  the  mortal  sin  of  unintelligibleness.  Over-ital- 
icising is  offensive  to  some,  because  it  impeaches  the  reader's 
intelligence ;  but  a  reader  should  be  ever  patient ;  the  minds 
of  readers  are  surely  most  unlike.  Moreover,  if  the  criti- 
cisms of  Swedenborg's  expounders  which  I  offer  shall  later 
seem  well-founded,  not  even  the  most  extraordinary  gro- 
tesqueness  in  presenting  them  will  appear  otherwise  than  in 
place  and  order  and  consonance. 


11 

SEPT.  22d,  1889. 


MY  DEAB  SIB  : 


The  passage  in  the  "  True  Christian  Religion,"  which  I 
think  you  cited  a  year  ago,  to  the  effect  that  an  atom  of  nat- 
ural substance  is  formed  by  a  congregating  or  putting  to- 
gether of  atoms  of  spiritual  substance,  is  at  no.  280,  in  the 
paragraph  which  begins,  "  Before  we  parted,  we  had  some 
further  conversation  about  this  matter."  In  that  paragraph 
Swedenborg  says : 

(1)  That  the  natural  world  and  all  natural  things  are  ma- 
terial, and,  that  the  spiritual  world  and  all  spiritual  things 
are  substantial.     He  also — 

(2)  Shows  that  the  substantial  or  spiritual  is  characterized 
by  consisting  of  singles ;  and  the  material  or  natural  by 
being  composite  (or  put  together)  from  singles  ;  or,  what  is 
the  same  thing,  the  spiritual  is  characterized  by  consisting 
of  particulars,  and  the  natural  by  consisting  of  generals 
formed  out  of  such  particulars. 

(3)  That  the  spiritual  is  to  the  natural  as  a  single  fibre  of 
a  nerve  is  to  the  nerve  itself,  which  is  composed  of  an  assem- 
blage of  fibres ;  or  as  the  small  filaments  in  a  rope-yarn  (fila- 
ments small    enough  to   be   drawn   through  the  eye  of  a 
needle  * )  are  to   some  large  rope  used  aboard  ship,  which 
rope  is  composed  or  made  up  by  uniting  small  filaments  into 
rope  yarns,  and  by  uniting  rope-yarns  into  strands,  and  by 
uniting  strands  into  a  rope.     He  further  shows — 

(4)  That  the  things  that  "went  into,"  "  began,"  or  «  made 
up  "  material  or  natural  things  at  their  creation,  were  sub- 
stantial  or  spiritual  things.     "  Sunt  initia"   he  says,   in 
speaking  of  "  substantial "  things ;  meaning  by  "  in-itia  "  the 
things  that  "  go  into  "  a  composite  ;   thus,  the  things  which 
are  the  "  beginnings "  of  the  composite ;  and  he  therefore 


"  Traduci  per  foramen  acus  netorii,"  n.  280. 


12 

asks,  "  What  is  matter  save  an  assemblage  of  things  sub- 
stantial f '  *  And  because  material  substance  was  made  by 
the  putting  together  of  spiritual  substance,  and  because 
spiritual  substance  was  made  by  the  putting  together  of 
substances  which  had  issued  forth  from  the  Divine  Body 
(Divine  Love  and  "Wisdom,  n.  291),  but  had  lost  the  Divine 
Life  (id.  n.  294) — thus  because  all  things  were  derived,  by 
composition  and  repeated  recomposition,  from  that  firs^ 
sphere  which  had  issued  forth  from  the  Divine  Man's  Body 
— therefore,  in  explaining  the  difference  between  the  celes- 
tial and  the  spiritual,  and  between  the  spiritual  and  the 
material,  Swedenborg,  in  the  passage  you  refer  to  (T.  C.  R., 
n.  280)  speaks  of  such  composition  and  recomposition,  and 
says  that  one  natural  contains  several  spiritual,  and  one  spir- 
itual contains  several  celestial ;  and  says  that  "  by  subdivis- 
ion "  (which  is  the  inverse  of  the  process  of  composition)  "  a 
thing  is  not  rendered  more  and  more  simple,  but  more  and 
more  many-fold,  because  it  thereby  approaches  nearer  and 
nearer  to  the  Infinite."  f  This  fact  of  increasing  multiplic- 
ity by  advancing  subdivision  can  plainly  be  seen  in  the 
structure  of  the  rope  of  which  Swedenborg  there  speaks ;  but 
it  is  hard  for  most  Swedenborgians  to  understand,  because 
they,  like  others,  are  unwilling  to  think  of  the  spiritual  as 
real  stuff  or  as  anything  more  than  some  thinking  activity. 

This  rope,  regarded  as  "  a  general,"  is  but  one  or  a  unity. 
Now  divide  it  into  the  strands  which  compose  it ;  you  will  find 
them  to  be  triple,  or  three  in  number ;  divide  the  strands 
into  rope-yarns,  and  you  will  find  the  rope-yarns  more  mul- 
tiple or  numerous  than  three ;  divide  the  rope-yarns  into 
fibres ;  those  fibres  are  vastly  more  multiple  or  numer- 
ous; take  at  last  a  microscope  and  divide  any  fibre  still 
further  and  you  find  it  infinitely  more  multiple  in  its  sub- 


*  "  Quid  materia  nisi  congregatio  substantiarum  ?"  n.  280. 
t  *  *  Quod  divisum  non  fiat  plus  et  plus  simplex,  sed  plus  et  plus 
multiplex,  quia,"  etc.,  n.  280. 


18 

divisions.  Therefore,  in  the  Arcana  Ccdestia,  no.  6465, 
Swedenborg  teaches  that  all  things  exist  by  successive  for- 
mations ;  posterior  things  by  formation  from  prior  things ; 
and  that  each  successive  formation  exists  separate  from 
those  that  go  before  it  and  from  those  that  come  after  it ; 
but  that  still  the  posterior  formation  depends  ever  on  the 
prior,  so  that  without  the  prior  the  posterior  could  not  pos- 
sibly exist ;  for  the  posterior  is  held  by  the  prior  in  coher- 
ence and  in  shape ;  and  that  it  must  not  be  imagined  that 
the  advancing  purity  of  interiors  over  exteriors  consists 
in  an  unbroken  advance  ;  and  that  it  must  not  be  conceived 
that  interiors  and  exteriors  are  united  by  an  unbroken  pro- 
gression ;  and  that  it  must  not  be  conceived  that  the  union 
between  interior  things  and  exterior  things  exists  without 
there  being  at  the  same  time  those  separations  or  distinc- 
tions that  are  effected  by  the  successive  formations  of  pos- 
terior things  from  prior  things. 


TAKE  THINGS  INSTEAD  OF  WOBDS. 

Dear  Sir,  I  pray  you  to  turn  from  the  words  which  there 
he  uses  to  the  ideas  or  actual  things  which  the  words  repre- 
sent ;  and  thus  to  see,  with  your  own  eyes,  by  applying  to 
real  objects  the  abstract  truths  of  Swedenborg,  whether  a 
new  light  does  not  break  upon  you.  Take  things,  things, 
THINGS  ;  do  not  take  mere  words ;  take  real  things,  and  put 
those  things  before  the  eye  of  your  mind.  Take  a  rope,  for 
example.  Actually  see  the  separate  or  "  discrete  "  degrees 
in  it.  Do  this  by  parting  it  into  its  strands.  See  how  the 
rope  is  "composed,"  or  made  up,  of  its  strands.  Count 
the  strands.  Observe  that  several  single  strands  must  be  put 
together  or  "  congregated  "  in  order  to  make  a  rope.  Next 
take  a  single  one  of  those  strands,  and  examine  it  separate 
from  all  the  rest.  Really  part  it  into  its  rope-yarns.  See 
how  the  strand  is  "composed,"  or  made  up,  of  rope-yarns. 


14 

Observe  that  several  single  rope-yarns  must  be  put  together 
or  "  congregated"  in  order  to  make  a  strand.     Take  next  a 
single  one  of  these  rope-yarns  and  examine  it  separate  from 
all  the  rest.     Part  it  into  its  filaments  or  fibres,  which  are  of 
coir,  hemp,  etc.,  according  as  the  kind  of  rope  may  be.     See 
how  the  rope-yarn  is  really  "  composed,"  or  made  up,  of  those 
filaments.     Now,  is  it  not  wholly  and  absolutely  clear  to 
every  sane  man,  woman  and  child — not  as  a  matter  of  trust, 
or    confidence  or  belief,  but  as  matter  of  fact — that  this 
rope  exists  by  successive  formations,  the  posterior  things  in 
it  existing  by  formation  from  prior  things  I     Is  not  the  rope 
itself  a  "  postreme  "  or  aftermost  thing ;  and  is  not  the  strand 
a  "  prior  "  or  foregoing  thing  to  the  rope  ?     Is  not  the  strand 
a  posterior  or  after  thing  to  the  rope-yarn,  and  is  not  the 
rope-yarn,  in  its  turn,  a  "  prior  "  or  foregoing  thing  to  the 
strand?    Is  not  the  rope-yarn  a  "posterior"  or  after  thing 
to  the  fibre,  and  is  not  the  fibre  a  "  prior"  or  foregoing  thing 
to  the  rope-yarn  7    Is  it  not  perfectly  clear  that  "  each  for- 
mation exists  separate  from  another  ?"*    If  it  is  not  perfectly 
clear  to  you,  look  at  the  rope ;  untwist  or  "  unlay  "  it ;  pull  it 
apart  into  strands,  or  (as  sailors  say)  "  strand "  it.     When 
you  shall  have  pulled  it  apart  in  this  way,  you  will  have 
three  strands  quite  separate  from  each  other,  and  quite  sep- 
arate from  any  rope ;  for  the  strands,  when  "  unlaid  "  or 
stranded,  are  only  strands  and  are  not  in  the  least  a  rope ;  the 
formation  called  "  strand  "  is  quite  separate  or  "  discrete  " 
from   the  formation  called  "rope."    In  like  manner  take 
a  strand,  and  pull  it  apart  into  its  rope-yarns  ;  the  forma- 
tion   called  "rope-yarn"  will  then  be  plainly  seen  to  be 
"separate"    or    "discrete"     from    the    formation    called 
"  strand."    Do  the  same  again  with  a  rope-yarn,  and  part  it 
into  its  fibres ;  a  fibre,  you  will  see,  is  a  distinct,  discrete,  or 
separate  formation  from  a  rope-yarn.     Now  take  the  rope, 

**'  Quod  imaquse vis  formatio  existat  separata  ab  altera." — Arc. 
Ccel.,  no.  6465. 


15 

and  consider,  in  a  general  way,  its  successive  formations : 
do  you  not  also  see  that  though  "  each  formation  "  in  the 
rope  "  exists  separate  from  each  other  formation,"1  yet  still 
the  posterior  or  later  formation  "  depends  "*  upon  the  prior 
or  earlier,  "  so  that  without  the  prior  or  earlier,  the  posterior 
or  later  could  not  exist  T'f  For  although  the  rope-yarn  is 
quite  distinct  from  the  fibre,  the  rope-yarn  "  would  be  noth- 
ing at  all "  if  you  took  the  fibres  out  of  it ;  and  although  the 
strand  is  quite  distinct  from  the  rope-yarn,  the  strand 
"would  be  nothing  at  all"  if  you  took  away  the  rope-yarns ; 
and  although  the  rope  is  quite  distinct  from  the  strands,  the 
rope  "would  absolutely  not  exist"  if  you  took  away  the 
strands.  Is  it  not  also  evident  that  the  "  advancing  purity  " 
of  which  Swedenborg  so  often  speaks — and  which  we  find  in 
tracing,  from  generals  to  particulars  or  from  composites  to 
singulars,  the  process  of  the  composition  of  this  rope  of  his — 
is  not  a  purity  that  advances  "  by  an  unbroken  advance/'f  but 
is  a  purity  whose  advance  is  broken  by  the  difference  be- 
tween rope  and  strand,  and  again  by  the  difference  between 
strand  and  rope-yarn,  and  still  again  by  the  difference  between 
rope-yarn  and  fibre?  Really  examine  a  rope ;  it  will  be  hard 
for  you  to  bring  yourself  to  do  this,  perhaps  ;  and  probably 
you  will  insist  that  you  know  it  well  already ;  but  do  it,  I 
beg  you  ;  do  it  here  and  now ;  try  it ;  pick  a  rope  apart ;  and 
then  you  will  understand  Swedenborg's  words  as  you  have 
never  understood  them,  and  thereby  you  will  also  see  why  he 
says  that  the  matter  of  formation  by  discrete  degrees  is  a 
muddle  unless  it  is  explained  and  illustrated  by  things  that 
can  be  sensed  and  apprehended  in  the  world  of  Nature  and 
that  stand  out  bodily  before  the  eye ;  but  that  it  becomes  as 


*"  Quod  posterior  dependeat  a  priori." — Arc.  Coel.,  no.  6465. 

f'Adeo  ut  [posterior]  non  subsistere  queat  absque  priori." — 
Arc.  Ccel.,  no.  6465. 

J"  Sicut  continue  puriora  et  sic  per  continuum  cohserentia." — 
Arc.  Ccel.,  no.  6465. 


16 

clear  as  things  of  sense  themselves  when  it  is  seen  by  apply- 
ing it  actually  to  those  things  of  sense.* 


LOOK  AT   THINGS  VISIBLE. 

He  says,  indeed  (D.  L.  W.,  228),  that  things  when  stated 
in  the  abstract  are  wont  to  be  better  grasped  than  when 
stated  in  their  applications  to  visible  things ;  but  he  takes 
care  to  state  the  reason  why,  viz.,  that  it  is  because  they  have 
an  all-embracing  and  never-erring  application,  if  stated  in 
the  abstract ;  whereas,  when  they  are  stated  in  their  appli- 
cations, they  must  be  stated  in  a  perpetual  variety  of  ways ; 
and  when  this  latter  course  is  taken,  the  inexhaustible 
variety  of  the  things  to  which  the  principle  applies,  draws 
the  mind  off  from  a  recognition  of  the  one  universal  principle 
which  pervades  the  applications.  The  moral  of  this  last  re- 
mark of  Swedenborg's  would  seem  then  to  be  this,  viz.,  that 
the  principle  ought  to  be  shown  by  means  of  its  application 
to  some  visible  thing ;  and  then  again  by  application  to  some 
other  visible  thing ;  and  thus  again  and  again,  until  it  is 
shown  to  be  "  universal " ;  next,  by  comparing  one  applica- 
tion with  another,  it  can  be  seen  in  what  respects  the  appli- 
cations or  illustrations  differ  or  "vary''  from  each  other,  and 
in  what  respect  they  are  all  just  alike;  then  next,  it  will  be 
found  that  in  one  respect  they  all  are  just  alike ;  thus  it  will 
be  recognized  that  the  respect  in  which  they  are  all  just 
alike  is  the  pervading  or  universal  principle ;  in  this  way  a 
recognition  of  the  universal  principle  at  last  gets  beaten  into 
the  dullest  brains,  because  each  varying  illustration  repeats 
that  principle  and  repeats  nothing  but  that  principle ;  be- 
cause, in  each  successive  illustration,  the  circumstances  are 
various  or  are  "in  variety",  and  therefore  no  one  of 

*"  Anceps,  quid  non  per  applicationes  ad  sensibilia  et  percepti- 
bilfa  in  natura  illustratum"    Divine  Love  and  Wisdom,  n.    218. 


17 

them  is  repeated  or  borne  in  upon  the  mind  with  that  force 
with  which  the  ever-recurring  principle  is  borne  in.  As  soon 
as  the  student  has  reached  this  stage  where  strong  is  his 
impression  of  the  ever-recurring  and  never- varying  principle, 
and  where  weak  is  his  impression  of  the  ever- varying  and 
never-recurring  detail  of  circumstance  or  of  visible  application, 
he  has  passed  out  of  the  region  where  "  variety  obscures," 
and  has  passed  into  the  region  where  "  the  universal  princi- 
ple is  better  seen  than  is  its  application"  (Div.  Love  and  Wis., 
n.  228),  "  and  is  better  seen  because  it  is  universal."  It  is 
vain  to  claim  that  this  stage  has  been  reached  among 
the  Swedenborgians ;  it  is  untruthful  to  affirm  that  any 
considerable  progress  is  making  towards  that  stage.  There- 
fore with  respect  to  the  doctrine  of  separate  or  "  discrete  " 
degrees,  we  ought,  by  observation,  to  collect  a  thousand  ex- 
amples— and  every  sane  man,  if  he  will,  can  observe  a  thou- 
sand daily.  Yet  well  I  know  that  but  few  of  Swedenborg's 
present  class  of  pupils  will  voluntarily  or  of  themselves  seek 
out  a  single  example ;  they  being  quite  willing  to  accept  his 
words,  and  quite  careless  of  seeing  that  his  words  are  true 
or  of  learning  in  what  manner  they  must  be  understood.  But 
do  not  let  me  squander  your  time  upon  digressions.  If  you 
will  really  take  a  rope  (or,  for  that  matter,  if  you  will  take 
anything  whatever  that  is  visible),  and  will  actually  pick  it 
to  pieces  with  your  fingers,  I  am  sure  that  with  your  able 
and  observing  mind  you  will  immediately  begin  to  under- 
stand the  doctrine  of  separate  or  discrete  degrees  so  profoundly 
that  you  will  be  seized  with  wonder  when  you  turn  and 
think  of  the  way  in  which  Swedenborg's  readers  generally 
take  this  doctrine,  viz.,  without  the  slightest  perception  of 
the  meaning  of  the  words  he  uses  in  announcing  it. 


"  Attamen  ilia  sdre  et  non  per  application's  ad  existentia  videre,  est 
modo  scire  abstracta  ;  inde  est  quod  *  *  *  de  tills  gradibus  parum 
si  quicquam  in  mundo  scitur."  Div.  Love  and  Wis,  189. 


18 

DEGREES  DISCRETE  AND  CONTINUOUS. 

These  "  breaks  "  or  separatenesses  between  the  stages  of 
all  composite  formation  are  what  have  caused  him  to  give 
them  the  name  of  "  discrete  degrees."  The  word  "  discrete" 
is  from  a  Latin  word  which  means  at  bottom,  "  to  put  a 
screen  or  division  bet  ween  two  things  ;"  thus,  to  partition  one 
off  from  the  other.  If  you  wish  to  see  the  difference  between, 
on  the  one  hand,  discrete  degrees  (these  being  degrees  between 
which  the  formation  "  breaks  joints,"  if  I  may  use  a  phrase 
of  builders),  and  on  the  other  hand,  continuous  degrees 
(being  degrees  between  which  the  formation  spreads  con- 
tinuously and  without  break  whatever  in  its  arrangement), 
compare  such  a  rope  as  I  have  just  decribed,  consisting,  as 
it  does,  of  quite  separate  formations,  with  that  peculiar  kind 
of  rope  that  was  once  used  for  the  "breeching  "  (as it  is  called) 
of  cannon.  That  kind  was  used  for  breeching,  on  account  of  its 
greater  pliability  ;  it  is  a  kind  which  is  not  made  of  strands, 
but  is  made  of  rope-yarns  unstranded,  i.  e.,  of  rope-yarns 
which  have  not  been  twisted  into  strands.  The  principle  of 
a  "  continuous  "  degree  is  not  perfectly  shown  in  such  a 
rope  ;  because,  even  in  this  kind  of  rope,  the  rope-yarns  are 
formed  out  of  fibres  that  have  been  twisted  into  rope-yarns; 
thus  there  is  at  least  one  separate  or  "  discrete  "  degree  in 
rope  so  used  for  "breeching."  But  imagine  a  rope  made 
out  of  fibres  that  have  not  even  been  twisted  into  rope- 
yarns  ;  compose  the  rope,  if  you  can  do  it,  immediately  from 
the  fibres  without  any  mediate  formation.  Compare  such 
a  rope  with  the  rope  of  the  three  discrete  degrees  which  I 
first  mentioned,  and  you  will  see  the  difference.  In  the  rope 
made  of  strands,  such  as  Swedenborg  refers  to  (Tr.  Chr. 
Eel.,  n.  280),  you  see  an  advance  by  discrete  degrees,  viz., 
from  fibre  to  rope-yarn,  from  rope-yarn  to  strand,  and  from 
strand  to  rope  ;  you  may  go  a  step  (gradus)  further,  if  you 
like  ;  and,  by  twisting  several  such  ropes  together,  make  a 
cable;  this  last,  I  reckon,  is  indeed  the  "funis  nauticus" 


19 

(T.  C.  B.,  n.  280)  which  above  I  rendered  as  "rope."  If  you 
wish  to  see  an  advance  by  "  continuous  degrees,"  on  the  other 
hand,  take  say  a  dozen  rope-yarns  and  lay  them  together  so 
that  they  will  form  a  unity — a  kind  of  rope  perhaps  a  quar- 
ter of  an  inch  in  thickness.  Take  next  say  thirty-six  rope-yarns 
and  lay  them  together,  making  a  kind  of  rope  perhaps  half 
an  inch  thick.  Take  again  a  greater  number  of  rope-yarns, 
and  make  a  rope  bigger  yet.  Lay  these  three  ropes  or  bundles 
beside  each  other,  and  compare  them.  The  "advance"  from  the 
bundle  of  a  dozen  rope-yarns  to  the  bun  die  of  thirty-six  rope- 
yarns,  and  from  that  of  thirty-six  to  a  bigger  bundle  still,  is  an 
advance  by  continuous  degrees ;  'tis  a  matter  of  less  and 
more.  An  advance  by  "  discrete  degrees  "is  an  advance 
by  breaks  instead  of  by  continuity.  An  advance  by  "  breaks" 
or  by  "  discrete  degrees,"  will  be  made  by  taking  three 
separate  bundles  of  one  dozen  each,  and  twisting  them  so  as 
to  make  one  bundle  ;  and  a  second  advance  by  "breaks"  or 
"discrete  degrees,"  will  be  made  by  taking  a  number  of  bun- 
dles like  those  which  you  thus  last  made,  and  twisting  them 
so  as  to  make  one  still  greater  bundle.  Such  then  is  the  dif- 
ference between  formations  which  are  separate  or  "  discrete," 
and  formations  which  are  unbroken  or  "continuous."  Unless 
this  difference  be  well — nay,  thoroughly — understood,  no  New 
Church  doctrine  can  be  understood  at  all ;  and  unless  this 
difference  be  first  thorougly  understood-  in  physical  or  ma- 
terial things,  it  cannot  be  understood  at  all  in  spiritual  or 
substantial  things. 


ORDER  SIMULTANEOUS  AND  SUCCESSIVE. 

Along  with  the  difference  between  separate  degrees  or  de- 
grees with  breaks,  on  the  one  hand,  and  continu- 
ous degrees  or  degrees  without  breaks,  on  the  other 
hand,  stands  almost  wholly  in  darkness  (among 
Swedenborg's  present  class  of  readers),  the  dif- 


20 

ference  between  degrees  of  successive  order,  and  degrees 
of  simultaneous  order.  I  do  not  mean  that  words  in  abund- 
ance are  not  used  by  Swedenborg's  readers  about  order  suc- 
cessive and  order  simultaneous  ;  but  I  mean  that  their  words 
have  little  meaning  and  are  used  with  no  intelligence.  And 
the  reason  is  the  same  as  before,  viz.,  that  with  respect  to 
this  distinction,  just  as  with  respect  to  the  other  distinction, 
words,  and  not  visible  things,  have  been  the  subjects  of 
thought ;  yet  things  and  not  words  are  what  this  difference 
resides  in ;  and  this  difference,  like  the  other  difference, 
must  be  seen  in  things  visible  before  it  can  be  seen  in  things 
invisible;  it  must  be  seen  in  many,  many  applications, 
before  it  can  be  seen  in  the  abstract ;  and  it  must  be  seen 
under  many  varieties  before  it  can  be  seen  to  be  a  principle 
of  universal  domination. 

There  is  no  end  to  the  applications  of  this  principle. 
Permit  me  to  invite  your  attention  to  an  application  which  is 
the  same  as  that  which  Swedenborg  suggests,  at  n.  280  of 
the  True  Christian  Eeligion,  for  discrete  degrees,  viz.,  that  of 
rope  making. 

SUCCESSIVE  OBDEK. 

The  fibre,  the  rope  yarn,  the  strand,  the  rope,  are  the  sub- 
jects of  "  successive  "  order,  when  the  formation  of  each  is 
regarded  in  the  aspect  of  their  "  successive  "  formation,  i,  e., 
when  the  order  in  which  we  regard  them  is  the  order  in 
which  the  ropemaker  proceeds  to  form  them.  Thus,  he  first 
puts  together  the  fibres  into  a  rope-yarn,  and  binds  them 
together  by  an  envelope  to  contain  and  distinguish  them  (as 
Swedenborg  declares  must  be  done  with  every  successive  de- 
gree)— which  binding  he  effects  by  twisting  them,  so  that 
the  twist  then  holds  them  together,  and  every  strain  upon 
the  rope  then  only  binds  the  fibres  still  more  closely  together. 
This  putting  together  and  twisting  together  of  the  fibres  so 
that  they  make  a  rope-yarn,  is  the  first  degree  of  successive 


21 

order  in  the  rope.  Next  lie  does  the  same  thing  with  a  num- 
ber of  rope-yarns  ;  he  puts  rope-yarns  together,  and  binds, 
envelopes,  distinguishes  and  ' '  contains  "  this  new  unity  by 
giving  its  component  parts  a  twist,  and  thus  he  forms  a 
strand.  This  second  operation  "  succeeds "  the  first,  and 
makes  therefore  the  second  degree  of  successive  order 
Next,  he  does  the  same  thing  with  a  number  of  strands  ;  and 
he  binds,  envelopes,  distinguishes,  and  <;  contains  "  this  new 
unity  by  giving  its  component  parts  a  twist,  and  thus  he 
forms  a  rope.  This  third  successive  operation  is  a  third  de- 
gree of  successive  order,  and  finishes  the  rope ;  its  creation 
is  now  finished,  and  the  maker  "  rests  in  quiet."  He  makes 
that  rope,  at  least,  no  more;  the  rope,  too,  "rests  in  quiet, 'J 
because  its  making  is  over. 


How  THE  MAKER  is  PRESENT  IN  His  WORK. 

Note,  in  passing,  that  its  making  was  ever  quite  and 
absolutely  outside  the  active  maker,  and  that  clearly  the  active 
maker  is  not  within  the  rope ;  just,  as  says  Swedenborg,  the 
Universe  is  not  in  God  any  more  than  the  earth  is  in  the 
sun  (True  Chr.  Kel.,  n.  46). 

The  maker  of  the  rope  is  not  present  in  the  rope,  other- 
wise than  that  the  "  USES  "  he  had  in  mind  are  present  there- 
in ;  it  is  thus  and  thus  only,  says  Swedenborg  (Div.  Wis. 
HI.,  2),  that  the  Divine  Maker  can  be  present  in  His  works  ; 
not  materially,  he  says,  but  spiritually  (Div.  Wis.,  HI.,  2) 
for  Uses,  he  says,  are  not  material  (Div.  Wis.,  ITT.,  2).  The 
end  or  purpose  of  the  maker  is  visible  in  that  rope,  and  so  is 
his  intelligence  and  wisdom.  I  merely  remark  this  visibility 
as  I  go.  I  note  it,  in  part,  by  way  of  contrasting  Swedenborg's 
teaching  with  your  theory.  Your  theory  is  that  the  Maker 
has  not  really  made  anything,  but  that  all  things,  after  being 
said  to  have  been  made,  are  still  at  bottom — at  very  bottom 
— either  nothing  whatsoever,  or  else  remain  really  unman- 


22 

ufactured,  and  do  yet  at  bottom,  at  very  bottom,  remain  His 
very  self.  And  your  theory  is  that  His  presence  consists  in 
a  presence  of  His  substance,  instead  of  a  presence  of  mere 
Use  from  Him — a  Use  devoid  of  any  substance  that  now 
is  He. 

It  is  also  for  a  second  purpose  that  I  call  your  attention 
to  the  fact  that  the  ropemaker's  aim  and  intelligence  are 
visible  in  the  rope  when  made.  This  second  purpose  is  that 
of  showing  that  here  we  find  an  illustration  of  the  difference 
between  successive  order  and  simultaneous  order. 

There  was  a  time  when  the  ropemaker  had  merely  formed 
a  wish  to  make  the  rope.  Next,  in  successive  order,  his 
wish  formed  or  put  together  the  intelligence  required  for 
making  it.  Next  in  successive  order,  from  the  wish,  by 
means  of  the  intelligence,  he  actually  made  the  rope.  Now 
as  soon  as  the  rope  is  made,  there  is  plainly  to  be  seen 
there  in  the  rope,  not  only  (a)  the  fact  or  act  of  making  it 
but  also  (b)  the  intelligence  whereby  it  was  made,  and  fur- 
thermore (c)  the  wish  or  end  for  which  it  was  made,  viz.- 
the  Use  of  the  rope,  to  wit,  the  use  that  things  might  be 
bound  thereby,  or  be  lifted  thereby,  or  be  hauled  thereby. 
There,  thus,  in  the  rope,  when  the  rope  has  actually  been 
made,  are  seen,  in  "simultaneous order"  or  in  "order  all  to- 
gether on  one  plane,"  the  three  degrees  which,  before  its 
making,  were  in  "  successive  order  ;  "  successive  order  being 
the  order  of  "  one  below  another/'  or  "  one  following  after 
another."  Examine  numbers  190  and  205  of  Sweden- 
borg's  Divine  Love  and  Wisdom,  and  construct  for  yourself 
a  few  hundred  illustrations  from  Nature.  Beat 
thus  out  of  your  mind  all  his  words,  and  beat 
thus  into  your  mind  all  his  meaning ;  and  then  you 
will  perfectly  understand  him.  But  in  the  poor  illustration  I 
have  given,  take  note  that  only  the  marks  or  tokens  of  the 
wish  and  intelligence  which  produced  the  rope  are  visi- 
ble in  the  rope,  and  that  the  wish  and  intelligence  them- 
selves are  not  really  there  ;  for  the  wish  and  intelligence  are 


23 

movements  of  spiritual  substances  which  are  of  human  shape 
and  are  in  the  ropemaker  alone  (Div.  Love  and  Wis.,  n.  42), 
and  have  not  gone  out  of  him  in  the  least  (Heaven  and  Hell, 
n.  139 ;  Div.  Love  and  Wis.,  n.  59.)  The  ropemaker  is 
present  only  in  the  "  Use"  or  "  good"  or  "  benefit "  of  the  rope 
(Div.  Wis.  HX,  2) ;  nor  can  any  being's  wish  and  intelligence 
exist  outside  of  his  own  very  substance  (Div.  Love  and  Wis., 
n.  209  near  end),  since  both  of  these  are  but  states  and 
changes  of  states  of  his  own  very  substance  (Div.  Love  and 
Wis.,  n.  209). 


THE  SUCCESSIVE  AND  THE  SIMULTANEOUS. 

But  since  this  illustration  of  simultaneous  order  may  not 
seem  clear,  because  in  this  illustration  the  comparison  passes 
partly  out  of  the  visible,  permit  me  to  furnish  an  illustration 
which,  like  the  illustration  which  I  have  given  of  successive 
order,  lies  wholly  within  the  visible,  and  which  thus  can 
readily  be  examined  by  the  physical  eye.  Let  me  furnish  an 
illustration  which  will  at  once  be  illustrative  of  "  successive 
order"  and  of  "simultaneous  order,"  and  in  which  both 
orders  will  be  seen ;  the  one,  successively,  or  one  degree  after 
another;  the  other  simultaneously,  or  all  degrees  together. 
For  the  sake  of  convenience  let  me  once  more  take  Sweden- 
borg's  rope  for  an  illustration.  Only  do  not  think  I  take  the 
rope  by  reason  of  poverty  of  illustration,  or  that  you  and 
I  cannot  use  as  an  illustration  any  visible  thing  soever 
which  may  be  nominated  for  that  purpose. 

To  the  middle  of  a  cardboard  cut  in  circular  form,  say  a 
foot  in  diameter,  fasten  one  end  of  a  long  thread  or  fibre, 
as  long  as  a  room  is  high;  so  that  the  thread  or  fibre 
would  hang  freely  down  from  the  cardboard,  were  the  card- 
board fastened  in  a  horizontal  position  upon  the  ceiling 
of  the  room.  Next,  around  this  fibre,  fasten  to  the  card- 
board other  like  fibres  in  just  that  fashion ;  fasten  a  good 


24 

many;  so  that  you  will  have  several  hundred  fibres 
with  one  end  fastened  to  the  cardboard,  and  so  to 
speak  growing  out  of  it,  and  hanging  down  long  from 
it,  much  as  flowing  hair  hangs  down  from  the  back 
of  a  woman's  head.  Now,  fasten  this  cardboard  to  the  ceil- 
ing ;  the  fibres  will  then  hang  straight  down  and  just  touch 
the  floor  ;  and  they  will  hang  free  and  clear  of  each  other. 
Let  us  next  proceed  to  make  rope  from  these  fibres.  In  doing 
this  we  shall  proceed  by  degrees  of  successive  order.  But 
when  we  have  finished,  the  degrees  which  we  formed  suc- 
cessively one  after  another,  will,  as  later  you  shall  see,  be 
found  existing  there  in  simultaneous  order  near  the  floor; 
the  degrees  of  successive  order  will  all  be  found  there  in 
succession,  one  after  another,  proceeding  from  top  to  bottom' 
and  the  degrees  of  simultaneous  order  will  all  be  found 
there  all  together,  all  at  the  bottom;  and  you  will  see 
there,  in  image,  all  the  things  that  are  described  there  in 
D.  L.  W.,  n.  205,  where  the  author  speaks  of  successive 
order  as  a  column,  and  of  simultaneous  order  as  a  plane, 
and  of  successive  order  passing  into  simultaneous  order  as 
a  column  may  sink  down  into  a  plane.  You  will  see  for  the 
first  time,  I  think,  what  Swedenborg  means,  and  what  no 
literary  reader  of  him  has  ever  seen ;  but  what  to  unlettered 
men  like  myself,  or  to  scientific  men  unlike  myself,  is  as 
plain  as  a  pikestaff. 

Take  a  number  of  those  fibres,  as  they  hang ;  take  neigh- 
boring ones  ;  take,  say  one  twenty-seventh  of  the  whole  num- 
ber and  begin  to  twist  them  together  ;  let  the  twist  begin  at 
one-fourth  of  the  distance  down  from  the  ceiling,  and  let 
there  be  no  twist  whatever  above  that  one-fourth  point — you 
can  prevent  this,  if  you  desire,  by  transverse  threads  which 
shall  run  crosswise  through  the  fibres  at  that  height  and  be  fas- 
tened to  the  sides  of  the  room — but  let  there  be  a  perfect  twist 
from  that  point  down  to  the  floor.  We  now,  by  one  degree  of 
composition,  have  formed  a  rope-yarn;  there  is  rope-yarn  reach, 
ing  from  the  floor  to  three-fourths  way  up  the  ceiling ;  and 


25 

above  that  point  there  is  no  rope-yarn,  but  only  separate 
fibres.  Now  serve  the  remaining  fibres,  portion  by  portion, 
and  twenty-six  portions  in  all,  one  after  another,  in  the 
same  way  as  you  served  that  twenty-seventh  portion  of  their 
number,  viz.,  by  twisting  them  just  as  you  did  the  first ;  you 
will  then  have  twenty-seven  rope-yarns,  all  hanging  near  each 
other,  and  all  reaching  from  the  floor  to  three-fourths  way  up 
to  the  ceiling ;  and  from  that  point  up  to  the  ceiling  you 
will  have  no  rope-yarn  whatever,  but  only  separate  fibres ; 
and  from  that  point  downward  you  will  have  no  fibres,  but 
only  rope-yarns. 

For  the  second  degree  of  composition,  do  as  follows : 
Take  nine  of  the  twenty-seven  rope-yarns — ones  that  hang 
neighboring  to  each  other ;  and  proceed  to  give  them  a  twist 
together,  and  let  the  twist  reach  from  the  floor  to  a  point 
half  the  height  of  the  room;  and  arrange  it  so  that  the 
rope-yarns  shall  from  that  point  up  to  the  ceiling  remain  not 
twisted  at  all.  The  twisted  portion  of  their  length  (which 
is  the  lower  half  of  the  full  length  from  floor  to  ceiling)  will 
then  be  called  a  "strand."  Now,  take  another  nine  of  the 
twenty-seven  rope-yarns,  and  treat  them  as  you  treated  the  first 
nine ;  then  take  the  third  nine  and  treat  them  likewise ;  you 
will  thus  have  made  two  "  strands  "  more ;  and  these  two  and 
the  first  strand  will  be  three  strands.  Thus,  from  the  middle 
height  of  the  room  to  the  floor  you  will  have  three  strands, 
and  from  the  middle  height  of  the  room  to  three-fourths  way 
up  to  the  ceiling  there  will  be  no  strands,  but  only  rope- 
yarns;  and  between  three-fourths  way  up  and  the  ceiling 
itself,  there  will  be  no  rope-yarns,  but  only  fibres. 

For  the  third  degree  of  composition,  do  as  follows :  Take 
all  the  strands  that  hang  there  ;  three  they  are ;  and  twist 
them  together  throughout  so  much  of  their  length  as  lies 
between  the  floor  and  a  point  one-fourth  way  up  to  the  ceil- 
ing, but  do  not  let  the  twist  reach  higher  up  than  that. 
This  twist  of  three  strands  makes  a  rope.  And  now  you 
have  rope  from  the  floor  to  one-fourth  way  up  ;  rope  only. 


26 

The  fourth  which  hangs  next  above  the  rope  is  in  strands, 
strands  only.  The  fourth  which  hangs  above  the  strands 
is  in  rope-yarns,  rope-yarns  only.  And  the  fourth  which 
hangs  at  top  is  of  fibres,  fibres  only. 

SIMULTANEOUS  ORDER. 

Now  take  the  rope  portion  in  your  hand,  and  put  the 
lower  end  or  foot  of  it  under  a  sharp-edge,  such  as  is  used 
for  card  cutting,  and  cut  it  square  off,  so  that  you  will  have 
a  perfect  cross-section  of  the  rope.  Let  the  rope  then  fall ; 
it  will  hang  as  before,  and  the  flat  end  or  cross-section  of  it 
will  just  touch  the  floor,  and  will  form  one  and  the  same 
plane  with  the  surface  of  the  floor  itself.  And  there  on  that 
plane,  at  the  very  bottom  of  the  rope,  will  lie,  "  in  simul- 
taneous order,"  and  "  all  together  on  one  plane,"  the  various 
degrees  of  successive  order.  Pick  up  the  rope,  look  at  the 
end  of  it,  and  see  if  it  is  not  so.  Look  at  it  closely  ;  at  the 
butt  end  of  it,  I  mean  ;  at  that  cross-section  ;  turn  the  rope 
up  so  that  you  can  see  the  cross-section  and  every  detail 
which  it  contains  ;  you  were  best  to  use  a  magnifying  glass. 
You  will  see  there,  first  of  all,  a  rope.  i.  e.,  a  section  of  the 
rope.  Observe  this  rope  more  interiorly,  and  you  will  see 
strands,  i.  e.,  a  section  of  strands  ;  three  of  them.  Look  at 
the  section  of  any  strand  and  regard  it  still  more  interiorly, 
and  you  will  discover  nine  rope-yarns ;  take  any  one  of  these 
rope-yarns  and  examine  it  still  more  interiorly — the  which 
may  need  a  magnifying  glass — and  you  will  find  many,  many 
fibres.  There  they  all  lie,  the  fibre  degree,  the  rope-yarn 
degree,  the  strand  degree,  the  rope  degree,  all  in  order 
simultaneous,  or  all  together  on  one  plane,  and  forming  one 
plane  surface. 

SUCCESSIVE  ORDER. 
Now  lift  your  eyes  to  the  ceiling,  and  letting  your  eyes  fall 


27 

slowly,  behold  successively  the  degrees  of  successive  order. 
Topmost  the  fibres;  next  downward  the  rope-yarns,  com- 
posed of  fibres  ;  next  downward  the  strands  composed  of 
rope-yarns  that  had  been  composed  of  fibres  ;  and,  lowest  of 
all,  the  rope  composed  of  strands  that  had  been  composed  of 
rope-yarns  that  had  been  composed  of  fibres.  I  italicise  the 
words  "had  been,"  because  these  words  are  in  conflict  with 
your  theory  of  the  formation  of  Substance,  whether  spiritual 
or  material  ;  and  because  this  "had  been  "  is  an  essential  of 
all  successive  order ;  for  in  successive  order  one  thing  takes 
place  after  another.  But  you  deny  all  degrees  of  succession, 
and  deny  that  one  thing  can  take  place  after  another  thing, 
and  deny  all  successive  order,  and  really  admit  only  simul- 
taneous order ;  you  being  able  to  think  only  in  the  ultimate 
or  lowest  degree  of  thought,  viz. :  the  degree  of  mere  effect. 
And  because  you  do  not  see  what  successive  order  is,  but 
only  what  simultaneous  order  is — which  last  is  the  order  in 
which  things  are  seen  when  they  are  regarded  only  in  their 
effects  and  not  in  their  successive  stages  of  causation — you 
believe  that  each  particle  of  substance  is  created  anew  each 
moment,  and  refuse  to  believe  that  it  had  been  formed  by 
successive  formations,  each  prior  of  which  must  have  been 
formed  before  any  posterior  could  have  been  formed.  Thus, 
you  destroy  all  succession,  although  succession  is  as  essen- 
tial to  the  spiritual  world  as  to  the  natural  (Heaven  and 
Hell,  n.  162) ;  and  you  consider  all  (i.  e.,  both  God  and  all 
created  substance)  as  "  simultaneous."  You  do  not  say  this, 
but  you  do  it.  To  do  this  is  to  deny  a  Creator  and  make  out 
Nature's  inmost  to  be  still  God.  But  let  us  pass  this  mat- 
ter by  ;  and  let  us  return  to  our  fibres,  our  rope-yarns,  our 
strands,  our  rope. 


28 

THE  TOPMOST  or  SUCCESSIVE  OEDEK  is  THE  INMOST  OF  SIMUL- 
TANEOUS ORDER. 

There,  lowering  your  eye  from  the  top  toward  the  bottom, 
you  see  them  in  succession,  in  succession  just  as  they  have 
been  formed,  one  after  another,  just  ?as  one  after  another  they 
were  formed ;  here  are  degrees  of  height  or  altitude,  but  seen 
in  successive  order.  Turn  your  eyes  to  the  lowest  degree, 
and  look  once  more  at  the  cross-section  of  the  rope.  There 
you  will  see  the  same  degrees  of  height  or  altitude,  yet  you 
will  see  them,  not  in  successive,  but  in  simultaneous  order- ; 
you  will  see  them,  not  in  the  order  in  which  you  were 
framing  them,  but  in  the  order  in  which  they  lie  when  they 
have  been  quite  framed  and  finished.  You  will  see  them  all  as 
described  at  Div.  Love  and  Wis.,  n.  205  ;  will  see  them,  I 
mean,  provided  you  either  are  an  illiterate  man,  or,  if  not 
illiterate,  are  a  man  of  science  ;  but  if  you  are  a  man  of 
letters  and  not  a  man  of  science,  you  probably  will  not  see. 
Either  an  illiterate  or  a  scientific  man,  I  say  (since  either  of 
these  can  think  by  images  and  not  by  words,  and  therefore 
see  the  objects  of  his  thoughts)  will  see  there,  in  that  cross-sec- 
tion of  the  rope,  in  simultaneous  order,  "  the  highest  things 
of  successive  order  "  (Div.  Love  and  Wis.,  n.  205),  viz.,  the 
original  fibres  ;  and  will  see  that  they  are  "  in  the  inmost " 
(ibid),  to  wit.,  in  the  inmost  construction  of  the  rope  (not  in 
the  local  inmost) ;  will  see  that  they  are  the  "  inmost "  in  the 
true  sense,  viz.,  that  they,  in  the  first,  or  highest,  or  inmost 
degree  ;  that  is  to  say,  are  causal  of  the  rope ;  will  see,  also, 
the  "  lower  things  "  (ibid),  viz.,  the  rope-yarns,  and  (after 
them)  the  strands  ;  and  will  see  that  these,  viz.,  the  rope- 
yarns  and  the  strands,  are  "in  the  middle  "  (ibid),  to  wit,  in 
the  media  or  means  whereby  the  final  rope  is  to  be  made — 
in  other  words,  will  see  that  they  are  mediately  or  second- 
arily causal  to  the  rope  ;  and,  finally,  will  see  ' '  the  lowest 
of  all  "  (ibid),  to  wit,  the  rope  itself  ;  and  will  see  that  the 
rope  itself  is  "  in  the  outmost "  (ibid) ;  and  that  the  rope 


29 

is,  in  the  true  or  essential  sense,  the  outmost,  viz. ,  that  it  is 
an  Effect,  not  a  cause.  If  "  inmost  "  "  middle  "  and  "  out- 
most "  had  a  spatial  significance  (i.e.,  a  meaning  relating  to 
locality),  those  words  would  here  be  absurd  ;  for  the  fibre, 
"  inmost "  as  it  is,  is  nevertheless,  (spatially  speaking)  found 
also  on  the  very  outside  of  the  rope,  for  there  it  makes  up 
the  rope's  surface  no  less  than  it  makes  up  the  rope's 
insides. 

TUBS  WITHOUT  BOTTOMS. 

But  it  is  well  nigh  useless  to  speak  concerning  Facts,  in 
speaking  with  Swedenborg's  present  class  of  readers  ;  they 
mostly  despise  Facts  as  men  despise  the  lower  rooms  at 
feasts,  and  as  men  despise  bottles  compared  with  wine  ; 
they  despise  Facts  as  bark  is  despised  when  compared  with 
heart- wood,  and  as  the  outmost  skin  of  the  body  is  despised 
compared  with  the  vitals.  Nevertheless,  it  still  is  true  that 
except  through  lower  rooms  there  is  no  coming  at  upper  rooms, 
and  that  with  broken  bottles  all  wine  runs  out  and  is  lost  in 
the  ground  ;  that  a  tree  stript  of  bark  must  die,  and  a  man 
when  flayed  must  perish  in  agony.  The  reason  is,  that  all 
Strength  and  Conservation  resides  in  Ultimates.  Save  as 
made  in  watering-pots  of  stone,  no  spiritual  wine  is  make- 
able.  Stone  means  sensuous  truth,  and  pots  or  vessels  mean 
the  ultimate  pictorial  images  formed  from  observation  by  the 
senses.  They  are  not  water,  still  less  are  they  wine.  But 
without  them  there  can  be  no  wine.  Of  them  the  most 
of  Swedenborg's  readers  at  present  will  have  none.  Or,  if  by 
chance  they  have  any,  they  seek  to  break  those  watering- 
pots  to  flinders ;  and  in  this  manner  many  of  them  merge 
all  the  reactive  vessels  of  natural  Thought  into  the  bound- 
less ocean  of  Pantheism. 


30 

THE  HOMOGENEOUS  AND  THE  HETEROGENEOUS. 

The  fibre,  the  rope-yarn,  the  strand  and  the  rope  are  all 
homogeneous  substances,  i.  e.,  are  substances  of  the  same 
kind.  Having  come  to  understand,  when  seen  in  visible 
things,  the  principles  of  successive  order  and  of  simultane- 
ous order  in  homogeneous  substances,  we  are  prepared  to 
understand  those  principles  when  applied  to  substances 
which  are  heterogeneous,  i.  e.,  are  substances  of  a  different 
kind.  Spiritual  substances  are  of  one  kind;  natural  sub- 
stances are  .of  another  kind.  Love  and  wisdom,  on  the  one 
hand,  and  material  substance  and  its  arrangement,  on  the 
other  hand,  are  heterogeneous,  and  of  absolutely  different 
essence.  Love  and  wisdom  are  human  and  man-shaped,  re- 
side in  man,  and  are  never  outside  of  him,  and  in  fact  are 
man,  man  spiritual ;  which  man  is  ever  in  the  human  shape. 
Material  substance  may  be  taken  from  the  world  of  matter, 
and  be  cast  into  the  human  shape,  as  in  the  making  of  man's 
body  is  actually  done ;  but  material  substance  does  not 
thereby  become  of  essence  ho>mogeneous  with  man. 

THE  Two  KINDS  OF  ORDER  AGAIN. 

Now,  let  me  trace  the  principles  of  successive  and  simulta- 
neous order  of  discrete  degrees,  with  Love,  Wisdom  and 
Use,  in  seeming  heterogeneous  succession.  This,  for  want 
of  time,  I  must  do  most  hurriedly,  and  doubtless  unsatis- 
factorily. Every  one  can  do  it  better  for  himself  and  to  him- 
self, in  thought-pictures,  than  another  can  in  words  do  it  for 
him. 

An  architect  wishes  to  build  a  house  for  his  family  to  re- 
side in  and  be  sheltered  from  the  weather  and  therein  to 
lead  the  family  life.  This  is  a  matter  of  his  Will;  it  is  his 
end  or  ami.  It  precedes  the  whole  process  of  designing 
and  building  a  house.  It  is  the  highest  degree  of  successive 
order. 


31 

Next,  he  designs  the  house  ;  with  cellar,  floors  and  garret, 
with  kitchen,  dining-room,  parlor,  bedrooms,  and  so  on. 
This  second  process  is  a  matter  of  his  Intellect;  it  is  his 
Plan,  the  assembling  and  sorting  of  his  various  desires  as  to 
a  house ;  it  is  produced  from  his  desire ;  it  consists  of  small 
but  distinct  filaments  or  fibres,  as  it  were,  of  his  Desire ; 
just  as  the  rope-yarn  consisted  of  threads  of  coir  fibre.  Thus 
he  desires  a  parlour  ;  he  desires  a  kitchen ;  he  desires 
three,  five,  ten  bedrooms,  etc.,  etc. ;  his  total  desire  consists 
of  these  separate  yet  entwined  or  interlaced  desires.  His 
design  is  the  second  or  middle  degree  of  successive  order. 

Having  formed  his  plan,  he  builds  the  house ;  he  builds  it 
out  of  his  Will  or  desire,  and  according  to  and  by  means  of, 
his  Intellect  or  Plan :  the  material  indeed  is  borrowed  from 
the  World  of  Matter,  but  he  throws  the  Matter  into  a  shape 
the  nearest  possible  resembling  his  immaterial  ideal  Plan 
and  his  Desire.  And  this  process  is  the  third  or  ultimate 
degree  of  successive  order.  These  three  degrees  in  the 
process  of  creating  that  house  follow  and  "  succeed "  each 
other  in  point  of  time,  and  this  is  why  they  are  called  de- 
grees of  "  successive  "  order. 

In  that  house,  when  the  architect's  Desire  has  at  last  fully 
passed  into  the  third  degree,  which  is  that  of  realization  or 
accomplishment,  are  found  and  beheld  all  three  degrees,  no 
longer  in  " successive "  but  in  "simultaneous  order."  In 
the  third  degree  of  that  house,  in  the  house  as  it  stands, 
with  his  family  living  in  it  and  enjoying  all  its  benefits, 
we  behold  the  second  degree,  viz.,  his  Plan, — at  least  we 
shall  see  the  plan  and  its  wisdom  if  we  examine  more  in- 
teriorly into  the  structure  of  the  house  ;  for  the  material 
has  been  shaped  into  that  very  Plan,  and  thus  the  Ideal 
has  been  set  forth  visible.  We  behold  moreover,  on  re- 
garding it  still  more  interiorly,  the  Desire  which  was 
within  the  Plan.  All  these  three  we  see  there ;  and  in  truth 
Tve  behold  there  the  architect  himself  as  to  his  Will  and  Wis- 
dom architectural ;  i.  e.,  we  read  them.  The  architect's  Will 


32 

and  Wisdom  themselves,  however,  are  not  in  the  bricks  or  the 
timbers,  or  in  any  of  the  space  within  the  house,  but  they 
are  present  in  the  "Use"  of  the  house,  are  present  spiritu- 
ally, not  materially,  for  Uses  are  immaterial  (Div.  Wis.,  HI., 
2).  Just  thus  is  it  with  the  Great  Architect  and  the  home 
which  He  has  made  for  us.  But  you  and  the  majority  of 
Swedenborgian  expounders,  if  I  understand  you,  would  have 
it  that  He  is  present  in  the  substances  themselves,  and  is  in 
the  very  walls  ;  just  as  really  as  the  bones  of  eleven  thousand 
virgins  or  others  might  be  in  (and  mostly  make  up)  the  walls 
of  that  old  church  at  Cologne.  True  it  is  that  all  substance, 
both  spiritual  and  material,  was  made  out  of  that  which  had 
been  God  and  had  been  put  off  from  Him  so  that  it  was  He 
no  longer ;  but  the  presence  of  God  in  the  dead  universe  is 
other  than  the  presence  there  of  that  which  had  been  thus  put 
off  from  Him  and  was  thenceforth  other  than  He.  His  pres- 
ence in  the  dead  universe  is  by  virtue  of  His  ARRANGEMENT  of 
it  into  forms  of  USE  ;  He  is  present  in  the  Use  and  in  Use 
alone. 

Two  CENTRES;  NOT  ONE  CENTRE. 

His  presence  in  the  dead  universe  is  as  the  presence 
of  a  woman  in  the  locks  of  her  hair  which  she  has  cut  off 
and  with  care  has  braided  as  a  keepsake  for  one  she  loves. 
She,  in  her  substance,  is  not  there  in  the  braid,  but  the  im- 
age of  her,  i.  e.,  the  trace  and  picture  of  her  will  and  of  her 
care,  is  visible  in  the  braid ;  and  the  calling  of  these  to  mind 
is  the  Use  of  that  braid,  and  in  that  Use  she  is  present.  The 
keepsake  was  her  substance ;  but  her  substance  it  is  not 
now.  She  put  it  off  from  her.  She  is  no  longer  in  it.  On 
this  subject  read  n.  59  of  the  Divine  Love  and  Wisdom. 
Bead  also  n.  35  of  the  True  Christian  Religion.  Head  there 
about  the  existence  of  two  centres  and  two  expanses  thence 
proceeding,  instead  of  the  one  centre  and  the  one  expanse 
which  you  conceive.  Consider  how  the  unbeliever  of  whom 


33 

Swedenborg  there  tells,  did,  just  like  yourself,  make  the  Life- 
centre  to  be  one  and  the  same  with  the  centre  of  Nature ; 
and  how  at  first  he  would  not  have  it  that  there  are  two 
centres ;  and  would,  at  first,  not  consent  to  place  the  Life- 
centre  at  any  distance  from  the  centre  of  Nature,  nor  consent 
to  look  at  the  centre  of  Nature  from  the  standpoint  of  the 
centre  of  Life,  but  wished  to  identify  the  two  centres  and 
make  them  one  and  the  same  centre.  That  one  centre  of 
his,  the  unbeliever  had  called  Nature.  You,  on  the  other 
hand,  have  called  it  God.  The  difference  between  yourself 
and  the  unbeliever  is  one  of  names  only.  If  you  identify 
two  centres  as  being  one  centre  in  fact,  what  matters  it 
whether  you  gave  to  that  sole  centre  the  name  of  this  or  the 
name  of  that  ? 

A  "  centre/*  in  this  connection,  does  not  mean  a  local  or 
spatial  centre.  It  means  that  which  is  causal ;  it  means 
that  which  is  constantly  causal ;  if  not  constantly  causal  it 
were  not  still  a  centre,  but  were  only  a  centre  which  was,  and 
which  is  no  longer.  Force  and  Motion  can  constantly  be 
causal.  Thus,  from  the  Life-centre,  transmitted  through 
spiritual  atmospheres,  can  the  motion  of  certain  spiritual 
substances  which  exist  in  the  structure  of  the  members  of 
the  vegetable  world,  be  constantly  caused  ;  and  thus  from 
the  Nature-centre,  which  is  the  sun-body  of  any  solar  system, 
transmitted  through  natural  atmospheres,  the  motion  of 
those  natural  substances  which  mainly  form  the  structure  of 
the  members  of  the  vegetable  kingdom,  can  constantly  be 
caused.  But  a  centre  for  the  constant  procession  of  some- 
thing else  than  Force  and  Motion,  i.  e.,  a  centre  for  the 
constant  procession  of  Substance  itself,  cannot  be  given  ;  for 
Substance,  if  it  proceeds  once,  has  once  for  all  proceeded ; 
and  if  more  Substance  thereafter  proceeds,  that  additional 
Substance  is  still  other  Substance  than  that  which  first  pro- 
ceeded. Hence  the  two  centres  of  which  Swedenborg 
speaks  are  centres,  not  for  the  constant  procession  of  Sub- 
stance, but  for  the  constant  procession  of  undulatory  Force 


34 

— in  the  one  case  natural,  and  in  the  other  case  spiritual. 
These  centres  are  now-existing  and  continual  centres.  The 
Life-centre  was  also,  in  the  beginning,  the  centre  for  the 
procession  of  all  Substance  ;  but  since  any  substance  can  but 
once  proceed  forth  and  does  never  re-enter,  that  original 
centre  did  at  creation  cease  to  be  a  centre  of  substance  ;  i.e., 
no  longer  continued  a  centre  for  the  forming  of  substances ; 
and  a  new  centre  was  thereupon  formed  for  all  Nature,  to 
wit,  the  solar  body  in  each  respective  solar  system  ;  from 
which  solar  body  the  substances  and  matters  of  its  satellites 
were  once  for  all  thrown  off,  and  from  which  thereafter  a 
stream  of  Force  and  undulatory  Motion  known  as  sunshine 
is  steadily  thrown  off.  And  this  is  why  Swedenborg  teaches 
(Tr.  Chr.  Kel.,  n.  35)  that  there  is  not  One  centre,  but  that 
there  are  two  centres ;  and  why  he  sets  the  Life-centre  far 
distant — infinitely  far  distant — from  the  Nature-centre ;  and 
why  he  makes  it  that  the  point  of  contact  between  their 
respective  expanses  is  on  their  circumferences  only,  where 
the  Divine  proceeding  from  the  Life-centre  does,  at  its 
utmost  circumference,  impinge  on  the  circumference  which 
is  from  the  Nature-centre  and  there  at  the  "  infima  naturae. " 
(Div.  Love  and  Wis.,  n.  160)  cause  all  that  life  in  vegetation 
(Div.  Love  and  Wis.,  n.  61,  at  end)  which  the  worshippers 
of  Nature  have  ascribed  to  the  Nature-centre,  and  not  to  the 
Life-centre  (Div.  Love  and  Wis.,  n.  350  to  n.  357).  But 
who  is  there  that  cannot  see  that  if  all  substances,  instead 
of  having  been  once  for  all  sent  forth  from  God,  were  to  be 
constantly  still  sent  forth  from  Him  as  you  imagine,  there 
would  be  but  one  centre,  instead  of  two  centres  ?  Do  you 
not  see  that  there  must  be  one  centre  of  dead  substance, 
which  substance  can  be  acted  upon  by  Life,  and  be  stirred 
to  living  (not  dead)  movement ;  and  that  in  the  animal  and 
vegetable  kingdoms  alone  (and  not  in  the  mineral)  there  can 
be  such  stir  effected  ;  and  do  you  not  see  that  there  must 
be  a  wholly  other  centre,  which  shall  be  the  Life- 
centre,  from  which  a  wave  of  Life-motion  shall  be 


35 

propagated  against  organized  forms  of  dead  substance, 
in  order  to  move  them  with  living  motion  ?  Were 
substance  still  to  be  propagated  from  a  centre,  do  you  not 
see  that  there  would  be  but  one  expanse,  and  not  two 
expanses,  of  substance?  If  you  say  that  the  material 
expanse  is  outside  the  spiritual  expanse,  but  surrounding  it, 
do  you  not  see  that  you  thus  make  but  one  centre  and  one 
virtual  expanse? 

Regard,  I  pray  you,  the  two  centres  as  distinct ;  and 
regard  the  Nature-centre  as  having  been  derived  from  the 
Life-centre,  but  not  as  being  still  derived  ;  for  if  you  do  the 
latter,  you  destroy  one  of  the  two  centres,  and  also  you 
merge  all  into  one  centreless  expanse.  Look  at  the  Nature- 
centre  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  Life-centre  (Tr.  Chr. 
Bel.,  n.  35) ;  you  cannot  do  this  if  you  fuse  them  into  one. 

For  other,  however,  than  God's  presence  in  the  dead  uni- 
verse (which  presence  is  solely  a  presence  in  its  uses)  is  His 
presence  with  living  creatures.  With  living  things,  just  as 
with  dead  things,  His  presence  is  not  a  presence  of  His  sub- 
stance; for  the  substance  out  of  which  they  were  made, 
though  it  was  His,  is  He  no  longer ;  but  His  presence  with 
them  is  more  than  a  presence  of  Uses :  it  is  a  presence  of  His 
Operation  or  Power  in  steadily  agitating  their  inmost  struct- 
ure with  that  Beat  which  is  the  Beat  of  Life. 


CONTINUAL  CAUSES  AND  CONTINUAL  MEDIATIONS. 

Now,  although  in  some  of  the  passages  which  are  cited  in 
the  report  to  the  Swedenborgian  Convention  upon  this  sub- 
ject (see  the  New  Jerusalem  Magazine  for  August,  1889*) 
Swedenborg  refers  not  in  the  least  to  the  creation  of  sub- 
stance, but  to  the  sustentation  of  life  (i.  e.,  refers  to  the  sus- 
tentation  of  living  or  wishing  motion  in  organized  forms), 


*  This  report  may  be  found  in  the  appendix  to  this  present  letter. 


36 

nevertheless  the  parity  of  the  respective  facts  is  such  that  all 
what  he  says  as  to  the  sustentation  of  the  life-movement  can 
be  made  true  also  as  to  the  original  and  once-for-all  creation 
of  substance,  spiritual  and  natural.  Let  us  now  see  if  it  does 
not  seem  plain  how,  with  regard  to  Substance  and  Matter — 
of  course,  regarding  Substance  and  Matter  as  distinguished 
from  the  life  communicated  to  spiritual  beings  and  to  ani- 
mal and  vegetable  substance  organized  into  living  forms — 
let  us  see,  I  say,  how,  instead  of  the  absolute  errors  of  which 
that  report  is  composed,  there  is  absolute  truth  in  the  pas- 
sages quoted  from  Swedenborg  in  that  report. 

Take  that  quoted  from  A.  E.  906 — "  To  create  is  not  only 
"  to  cause  to  be,  but  also  to  cause  to  be  perpetually,  by  con- 
"  tinuation  and  sustentation." 

Also  that  quoted  (N.  J.  Mag.,  Aug.  1889,  p.  460)  from 
D.  L.  W.,  303. 

"  They  who  do  not  deduce  the  creation  of  the  universe 
and  all  things  thereof  by  continual  mediations,  from  the 
First,  can  but  construct  broken  hypotheses  torn  from  their 
causes." 

Also  that  quoted  (N.  J,  Mag.,  Aug.,  1889,  p.  461)  from 
A.  C.,  5116. 

"  Every  effect  without  a  continual  influx  of  the  cause,  van- 
ishes in  a  moment." 

Let  us  now  apply  to  FACTS  these  doctrines,  instead  of  ap- 
plying them  to  mere  words  or  to  mere  imaginations,  or  in- 
stead of  omitting  to  give  them  any  application. 

Is  it  not  clear  that  the  fibre  "  creates  "  (or  "  causes  to  be  ") 
the  rope-yarn ;  similarly,  that  the  rope-yarn  "  creates "  (or 
"  causes  to  be  ")  the  strand ;  similarly,  the  strand,  the  rope  ? 
and  that  each  of  these  is  what  causes  the  next  after  it  "to  be 
perpetually,  by  continuation  and  sustentation;"  also  that  the 
fibre  is  to  the  rope-yarn  "  a  continual  cause, "  without  which 
continual  cause  the  rope-yarn  "  would  vanish  in  a  moment  j" 
also  that  any  one  of  these  "  disconnected  from  the  first  of 
all "  (as  is  quoted  in  N.  J.  Mag.,  Aug.,  1889,  p.  461,  from 


*F 

[UNIVERSf 


37 

A.  C.  5116)  would  "fall  to  nothing  in  a  moment?"  Is  it  not 
very  clear  that  the  ultimate  thing  called  a  rope  must  be 
created  by  "  continual  mediations  from  the  first,"  which 
"  first "  is  the  primary  coir  fibre  or  hemp  fibre  ?  also  that 
even  the  smallest  fibre  in  the  rope-yarn  must  have  been  com. 
posed  of  still  finer  things,  and  that  these  again  must  have 
beon  composed  of  still  finer  ones ;  and  so  on  (by  discrete 
degrees— Div.  Love  and  Wis.,  nn.  190,  184,  195,  197)  until 
the  finest  natural  substance  has  been  reached?  and  is  it  not 
clear  to  the  rational  eye  that  when  this  finest  natural  sub- 
stance has  been  reached,  this  finest  natural  substance  can 
have  no  existence  except  by  virtue  of  its  being  "  a  congrega- 
tion of  particles  "  which  previously,  and  until  they  were  so 
"  congregated  "  had  been  spiritual  particles  (True  Chr.  Rel., 
n.  280,  as  cited  above)  1  Moreover,  take,  in  imagination,  one 
of  these  particles  which  had  been  spiritual ;  take,  for  ex- 
ample, a  particle  of  the  spiritual  ultimate  or  soil  (see  Ap. 
Ex.,  n.  1212,  continuation  6,  where  Swedenborg  says  that  the 
soils  in  the  spiritual  world  are  the  ultimate  of  spiritual  sub- 
stance there ;  see  also  Div.  Love  and  Wis.,  n.  302).  Do  you  not 
see  that  such  a  particle  cannot  but  have  been  composed  of  a 
number  of  other  finer  particles  compressed  together,  and  that 
these  finer  ones  again  must  have  been  formed  from  the  com- 
pression of  still  finer  which  had  similarly  been  compressed ; 
just  as  a  solid  particle  must  have  been  composed  from  finer 
ones  which  had  been  liquid  ones,  and  just  as  a  liquid  particle 
must  have  been  composed  from  still  finer  or  gaseous  ones — 
a  liquid  particle  being  a  compression  together  of  a  number 
of  gaseous  particles,  and  a  solid  particle  being  a  compression 
together  of  a  number  of  liquid  particles  *  Do  you  not  see 
that  this  process  of  composition  and  recomposition  is  de- 
scribed in  terms  applicable  to  either  world  alike  (yet  the  sub- 
stances concerned  in  these  two  worlds  respectively  being  ut- 
terly unlike)  in  the  "Divine  Love  and  Wisdom,"  at  n.  302;  and 
that  the  expression  in  the  next  following  number,  viz.,  n.  303, 
about  the  necessity  of  "deriving  creation  from  the  first  by 


38 

"  continual "  or  "unbroken  "  mediations  (which  the  Report 
to  the  Convention  so  fearfully  misconceives),  refers,  not  to 
any  continuousness  or  constancy  or  unbrokenness  of  time, 
but  to  a  continuousness  or  unbrokenness  in  the  chain  of 
mediate  or  intermediate  compositions  f  Is  it  not  clear  that 
this  expression  of  Swedenborg's  refers  to  the  con- 
tinual series  of  composition  and  recomposition  by  these  dis- 
crete degrees — which  series  reaches  from  the  finest  even  to  the 
grossest  ?  Does  it  not  seem  clear  to  the  very  eye,  that  the 
"mediations"  which  Swedenborg  means  are  real  substances, 
which  are  intermediate  between  (a)  the  first  substance — 
which  first  substance  until  so  used  in  creation,  had  been  the 
substance  of  the  spiritual  Sun — and  (b)  that  last  or  ultimate 
substance  called  Matter,  which  visibly  makes  up  any  visible 
thing  ?  Does  it  not  seem  clear  that  the  fibre  does  not  each 
moment  form  afresh  the  rope-yarn,  and  that  the  rope-yarn 
does  not  each  moment  form  ajresh  the  rope ;  but  that  the 
"unbrokenness  "  meant  by  Swedenborg  is  the  unbroken  suc- 
cession of  composition  and  recomposition,  whereby  all  sub- 
stances have  been  manufactured  from  the  substance  which 
was  substance  of  the  Spiritual  Sun ;  and  that  in  Swedenborg 
there  is  no  notion  so  absurd  as  that  of  forming  again  and 
again  (or  "  continually  "  in  point  of  time)  the  rope  from  the 
strands ;  and  that  there  is  in  Swedenborg  no  notion  so  ab- 
surd as  that  of  forming  again  and  again  (or  "  continually " 
in  point  of  time),  the  strands  from  the  rope-yarns;  and  that 
there  is  in  him  no  notion  so  absurd  as  that  of  forming  again 
and  again  (or  "continually"  in  point  of  time),  the  rope-yarn 
from  the  fibres  ?  Is  it  not  clear  that  each  of  these — fibre, 
rope-yarn,  strand — did  in  each  case,  completely  and  once  for 
aU>  make  up  the  thing  which  was  posterior  to  it,  and  that 
no  repeated  formation  is  necessary  or  even  possible  ?  and 
that  the  "  continualness  "  referred  to  by  Swedenborg  is  this, 
viz.,  that  the  process  of  formation  from  fibres  to  rope-yarn  is 
"continued,"  i.  e.,  extended  or  repeated,  in  the  formation  of 
rope-yarns  into  a  strand;  and  is  "continued,"  or  "repeated," 


39 

in  the  formation  of  strands  into  a  rope ;  and  that  the  "  con- 
tinual" or  "unbroken"  character  of  this  process  of  the 
"  creation "  of  a  rope  consists  in  the  unbrokenness  of  the 
chain  of  composition  and  recomposition,  and  does  not  consist 
in  some  imaginary  re-creation  of  the  rope  at  successive 
moments,  by  a  supposed  "unbroken"  succession  of  repeti- 
tions of  the  act  of  making  a  rope  ?  Would  it  not  seem  clear 
enough  that  a  chain  is  made  or  created  "  unbroken,"  when 
the  links  are  joined  together,  and  when  each  successive  link- 
ing repeats  the  mode  or  fashion  of  the  next  previous  .  link- 
ing ;  and  that  the  creation  of  the  chain,  to  however  great  a 
length  the  chain  be  continued,  or  how  long  soever  the 
created  chain  may  endure,  is  not  repeated  as  a  whole,  but 
when  once  created  needs  no  repeated  creation,  and  stands 
fixed  and  fast,  subsistens  in  quiete  (see  "  The  Angelic  Idea  of 
Creation,"  in  the  "  Divine  Wisdom ;"  also  Tr.  Chr.  Kel.  n. 
46  ;  also  Div.  Love  and  Wis.  nn.  302,  160) ;  its  maker  also 
then  at  last  resting  from  at  least  that  labor?  Would  it  not 
seem  clear  that  if  this  is  the  true  interpretation  with  respect 
to  the  visible  or  natural  portion  of  the  series  of  compositions 
and  recompositions  of  the  Universe,  it  must  be  true  also  with 
respect  to  the  invisible  and  spiritual  portions  ? 


"  CONTINUAL  "  HAS  Two  MEANINGS. 

When  we  come  to  examine  into  another  subject,  viz.,  the 
condition  and  maintenance  of  the  living  portion  of  the  Universe, 
i.  e.,  the  vegetable  and  animal  kingdoms,  with  respect  to 
the  existence  of  any  one  living  vegetable  or  animal  creature, 
would  it  not  seem,  on  the  contrary,  that  its  life  is  an  internal 
Activity  and  Motion  of  its  substance,  and  that  this  motion  is 
a  far  other  subject  to  consider  than  is  the  substance  of  which 
that  creature  consists  ?  In  order  for  a  movement  to  continue 
in  substances  which  are  incapable  of  self-movement,  must 
not  this  movement  be  "constantly"  maintained  (continue 


40 

actuatae,  Div.  Love  and  Wis.,  n.  291)  by  fresh  efforts  from 
the  Divine  (Div.  Love  and  Wis.,  n.  291)  ?  Else  will  not  those 
substances,  being  dead  in  themselves,  cease  to  be  moved  or 
affected  or  have  Affection — which  is  spiritual  motion  or 
Emotion  ?  Will  they  not  become  emotionless  upon  the  instant 
when  ceases  the  effort  upon  them  which  moves  them  ?  Must 
not  their  motion,  emotion  or  affection  cease  the  instant  they 
cease  to  be  moved  or  affected  ?  Do  you  not  see  that  this  "con- 
tinually" (continue,  Div.  Love  and  Wis.,  n.  291),  unlike  that 
other  "  continually,"  is  an  adverb  of  time,  and  refers,  not  to  a 
constant  repetition,  on  lower  and  lower  planes,  of  the  com- 
position and  recomposition  of  a  posterior  thing  from  a  prior, 
or  of  one  thing  from  another,  but  refers  to  a  "continual "or 
"  unbroken  "  series  of  repetitions  of  impulse  imparted  to  cer- 
tain substances  which  already  beforehand  had  been  created ; 
and  that  this  Impulse  is  there  described  as  imparted  without 
cessation  from  the  Divine  Heart  and  Lungs  to  the  dead  and 
self-motionless  substances  surrounding  God's  Body,  and 
from  those  substances  is  propagated  onward  and  outward, 
as  the  waves  of  motion  are  propagated  in  the  phenomena 
of  sound  and  heat  and  light — waves  of  mere  radiating  motion 
in  substances  which  only  quiver  with  the  motion,  as  Sweden- 
borg  teaches  and  as  since  his  day  has  become  well  known, 
and  are  by  no  means  transfers  of  the  substances  themselves? 
Do  you  not  remember  that  "  into  the  things  which  receive 
Life,  Life  enters  in  no  other  wise  than  as  heat  and  light 
and  sound  flow  into  the  organs  which  receive  them"  (Apoc. 
Exp.,  1134,  continuation,  n.  1122,  continuation);  and  that 
they  "  do  not  commix  themselves  with  the  things  into  which 
they  flow"  (Apoc.  Exp.,  n.  1121,  continuation)? 


PUT  THEOBY  TO  THE  PROOF  or  FACT. 

Now  here,  in  these  two  citations  we  find,  quite  pat,   a 
chance  to  try  your  theory  of  the  mode   and  manner  of 


41 

life-influx.  Let  us  try  it  and  see  how  it  works.  Sweden- 
borg  says  (Apoc.  Exp.,  n.  1122,  continuation),  that  life 
comes  from  God  just  as  sound  comes  into  the  ear. 
You  declare  that  this  life  comes  steadily  to  all  substance, 
and  steadily  creates  all  substance.  Now  does  that  in- 
flowing beat  or  pulse  of  mere  motion  in  the  air  which 
is  called  sound,  create  the  substance  of  the  ear,  or  does  it 
merely  agitate  an  already  created  substance  there?  Sweden- 
borgsays  (Apoc.  Exp.,  n.  1122,  continuation),  that  life  from 
God  comes  just  as  light  comes  into  the  eye.  Now  does  that  in- 
flowing beat  or  pulse  of  mere  motion  in  the  ether,  which  is 
called  light,  create  the  substance  of  the  eye,  or  does  it  merely 
agitate  an  already  created  substance  there  7  Yet  you  hold 
that  life-influx  constantly  creates  all  matter;  you  hold 
that  matter  is  maintained  by  this  influx ;  you  hold  that 
but  for  such  influx  all  matter  and  substance  would  turn  to 
nothing  ;  and  you  hold  that  Swedenborg  teaches  this.  Does 
he  teach  it  in  these  passages,  which  avowedly  treat  of  the 
nature  of  life-influx  ?  Have  you  read  them  in  wakefulness, 
or  have  you  read  them  in  a  dream  ?  Which  view,  now,  is 
reasonable  ?  Do  you  not  see  that  "  continualness  "  when  ap- 
plied to  the  maintenance  of  a  stream  of  motion  carried  into 
created  substances,  is  quite  a  different  thing  from  "  continual- 
ness  "  in  the  chain  of  composition  of  those  substances  them- 
selves, by  which  chain  they  have  been  created  ?  Is  it  not  clear, 
moreover,  that  the  difference  between  spiritual  substance  and 
natural  substance  is,  that  the  latter  is  in  a  discrete  or  separate 
degree  from  the  former,  having  been  derived  from  the  former 
by  composition,  just  as  a  nerve  is  formed  from  the  fibres 
composing  it  (True  Chr.  Bel.,  n.  280) ;  and  that  the  subject 
treated  of  at  n.  280  of  the  True  Christian  Religion  is  the 
creation  of  substance,  and  not  the  creation  of  Motion  in  sub- 
stances? and  that  the  subject  matter  in  those  passages  where 
Swedenborg  tells  of  the  maintenance  of  life  in  organized  as- 
semblages of  substance  is  quite  a  different  subject  matter  f 
Is  it  not  clear  that  Life  is  a  motion  among  substances,  or  a 


42 

motion  of  substance,  and  (in  created  beings)  is  not  itself  a 
substance  at  all  ?  Is  it  not  clear,  moreover,  that  the  motion 
which  is  life  is  a  motion  that  cannot  be  imparted  except  to 
just  such  substances  as  are  capable  of  taking  up  just  its  kind 
of  motion,  i.  e.,  cannot  be  imparted  except  to  substances  that 
are  spiritual ;  and  that  consequently  it  is  a  motion  that  cannot 
be  kept  up  except  in  spiritual  substances  ?  and  that  these 
spiritual  substances,  when  moved  by  that  motion  (as  they 
solely  can  be  moved),  are  said  to  be  "  alive"  ?  and  does  it  not 
seem  clear  that  this  motion  of  spiritual  substance  cannot  pass 
over  to  natural  substance,  because  natural  substance  is  irre- 
sponsive to  it  (is  not  "  susceptible "  of  it,  see  Conj.  Love,  n. 
189) ;  all  natural  substance  being  of  discretely  different  de- 
gree, and  quite  incapable  of  vibration  to  the  life  movement  ? 
Just  as  a  great  floe  of  ice  cannot  possibly  vibrate  to  the  min- 
ute ripple  which  freely  prevails  in  the  particles  of  liquid  in 
which  the  ice  floe  notwithstanding  floats,  and  from  which  the 
ice  indeed  had  been  composed  by  a  discrete  degree  of  form- 
ation, so — just  so — no  natural  substance  can  be  moved  by  the 
life-beat.  What  we  call  life,  in  natural  substances,  is  but  an 
imitation  of  the  life  movement,  an  imitation  effected  by  purely 
natural  forces  as  instrumental  causes,  yet  ever  guided  by 
the  spiritual  organism,  just  as  the  engine's  elemental  forces 
are  guided  into  intelligent  action  by  the  engineer's  intelli- 
gence. 

MOTION  is  NOT  SUBSTANCE. 

But  if  these  things  do  not  seem  clear  to  you,  does 
it  not  at  least  seem  clear  that  substance  is  one  thing,  and 
the  vibration  or  motion  of  that  substance  is  quite  another 
thing ;  and  that  before  the  vibration  or  motion  can  exist, 
the  substance  itself  must  exist  ?  "  Life  itself,"  says  S weden- 
borg,  "  the  which  is  God,  is  unbroken  in  its  nature,  and 
cannot  be  cleft  at  any  point  whatever," — vita  *  *  *  quae 
Deus  *  *  *  est  continens  et  non  separabilis  (Apoc. 


43 

Exp.,  n.  1121,  continuation) ;  "  but  out  of  substances  that 
have  no  life,  Life  is  able  to  shape  forms  where  it  can  indwell 
and  to  which  it  can  give  that  they  shall,  as  it  were,  live," — 
sed  creare  potest  formas  ex  substantiis  qitae  non  vitae  sunt, 
quibuspotestinesse  et  dare  sicut  vivant  (Apoc.  Exp.,  n.  1121, 
continuation).  Now  if  created  life  is  not  a  furnished  sub- 
stance, but  is  a  motion  or  vibration  furnished  to  substances, 
is  it  not  clear  that  a  substance  may  either  vibrate  or  not 
vibrate ;  also  that  at  one  time  it  may  vibrate  and  at  another 
time  may  cease  to  vibrate  ;  consequently  that  the  reality  of 
any  substance  is  one  affair,  but  the  question  of  whether  it  is 
alive  (i.  e.,  of  whether  it  is  vibrating  to  the  life-bringing  beat 
or  pulse  of  the  heavenly  atmosphere)  is  quite  another  affair! 
Have  you  not  surely  been  confounding  Life  or  spiritual  mo- 
tion on  the  one  hand,  and  the  reality  of  created  substance  on 
the  other  hand  ?  Do  you  not  mix  the  two  things  "  which 
do  not  mingle  " — quae  non  se  commiscent  "  (Apoc.  Exp.,  n. 
1121,  continuation),  viz.,  Life  and  the  substance  which,  when 
fitly  organized,  can  receive  Life — vita  et  recipiens  ejus  (Apoc. 
Exp.,  n.  1121,  continued)  ?  Swedenborg  says  (ibid.),  that 
those  two  are  "  as  the  active  and  the  passive."  Must  not 
the  passive  be  something  real,  and  be  at  bottom  quite  other 
than  the  active,  in  order  that  it  may  be  passive  and  not  be 
the  active  itself?  Now  all  things  are  real,  but  only  organized 
things,  having  spiritual  substance  that  has  not  been 
"  clotted  "  into  natural  substances,  receive  life.  Even  the 
spiritual  sun  and  the  spiritual  atmosphere  do  not  "  receive  " 
life  in  the  sense  of  "  retaining  "  it ;  they  only  transmit  it ; 
none  of  it  is  absorbed  by  them ;  they  do  not  bring  into  rest 
its  motion ;  this  is  just  as  with  sound  in  the  air  ;  the  air 
does  not  "  receive  "  any  sound  ;  the  air  only  transmits  the 
energy  of  the  sound-wave — and  with  energy  diminishing  as 
the  square  of  the  distance  increases ;  it  is  the  ear  only — the 
organized  ear  only — that  can  receive  sound.  Kecall  what 
Swedenborg  says — A.  E.,nn.  1121, 1122,  continuations — that 
Life,  the  which  is  God,  cannot  create  living  things  except  out 


44 

of  substances  which  are  not  alive,  and  that  life  flows  in  just 
as  light  flows  into  the  eye,  or  as  sound  flows  into  the  ear ; 
consequently  that  there  must  be  dead  substances  created, 
before  living  things  can  be  created  out  of  them.  But  you, 
if  I  understand  it,  will  have  it  that  there  are  no  dead  sub- 
stances, and  that  all  substances,  dead  or  alive,  are  inmostly 
alive  with  a  stream  of  Life ;  and  you  will  have  it  that  Life 
(even  after  the  creation  of  dead  substance)  is  an  indwelling, 
inmost,  living  reality  of  every  dead  substance,  and  is  its 
very  reality  ;  thus  you  make  dead  Substance  and  Matter 
to  be  (inmostly  considered)  God,  or  a  part  of  God.  You 
say  that  you  do  not  make  its  inmost  reality  to  be  God, 
forasmuch  as  you  consider  it  to  be  only  coming  from  God. 
But  if  it  comes  (now  and  presently)  from  God,  must  it  not, 
at  the  moment  when,  according  to  your  theory,  it  shall  fairly 
have  arrived  at  being  the  inmost  of  a  particle  of  created  sub- 
stance, be  either  He  absolutely,  or  absolutely  not  He,  or  else 
absolutely  nothing  whatsoever  ?  If,  after  such  arrival  (i.  e.t 
after  its  change  of  state,  as  you  think,  whereby  it  shall  be- 
come that  particle  of  created  substance)  you  consider  it  to  be 
still  He,  do  you  not  make  God  to  be  the  Ens  Uhiversi,  and 
to  be  the  inmost  activity  of  Nature — a  doctrine  which  stinks 
in  the  spirit  world,  says  Swedenborg,  and  is  held  by  those 
who  have  no  God  I  If,  after  the  arrival  which  you  imagine, 
"  the  inmost  reality  "  is  not  God,  has  it  by  arrival,  become 
unreal  I  If,  by  so  arriving,  it  has  become  unreal,  where  on 
its  journey  thither  did  it  become  unreal  I  And  if  its  reality 
is  something  which  streams  steadily  forth  into  each  particle 
(instead  of  its  reality  once-f  or-all,  at  the  beginning,  at  crea- 
tion, having  come  forth  out  of  God,  and  having  once-for-all 
furnished  the  whole  substance  of  that  particle),  what  be- 
comes of  the  flood  that  (as  you  think)  comes  into  that  par- 
ticle at  the  present  moment,  in  view  of  the  fact  that  another 
flood  of  the  same  sort  is,  as  you  think,  to  come  in  at  the  next 
moment,  and  likewise  is  to  enter  into  that  particle  ?  Are 
both  floods  to  stay  in  it,  and  are  they  both  to  constitute  it  ? 


45 

Is  an  additional  supply  to  be  furnished  each  moment  I  Now 
ask  yourself  soberly,  is  such  a  phenomenon  reasonable,  or  is 
it  a  disordered  dream?  But  you  hold,  if  I  understand 
aright,  that  the  inflowing  Life  makes  up,  and  each 
moment  freshly  furnishes,  the  substance  of  the  thing  into 
which  it  flows.  Yet  Swedenborg,  whom  you  mean  to  follow, 
teaches  that  the  flood  of  life  is  like  that  flood  of  motion, 
which,  as  Sound,  flows  into  the  ear.  Must  you  not  there- 
fore believe  that  the  vibration  of  the  air  which  is  Sound,  does 
compose  and  constitute  the  substance  of  the  ear  into  which 
it  flows  ?  I  pray  you  to  look  at  this  thing,  and  see  which  of 
us  two  is  unreasonable,  and  see  whether  this  thing  has  been 
well  considered  by  Swedenborg's  readers,  of  whom  the  great 
majority  believe  as  you  do.  I  know  you  will  say  that  the  pas- 
sages which  I  cite  from  Swedenborg  about  the  influx  of 
lif e  refer  not  at  all  to  the  process  of  sustentation  of  Substance 
and  Matter  which  you  maintain,  and  therefore  are  incapa- 
ble of  use  in  opposition  to  your  theory.  I  admit  that  they 
do  not  refer  to  any  such  process.  But  point  me  out,  if  you 
can,  any  passage  which  you  think  suggests  such  a  process 
as  you  imagine.  Examine  it  well,  and  see  if  it  does  not  ad- 
mit an  application  to  the  sustentation  of  life  in  living  crea- 
tures ;  and  see  whether  this  application  is  not  the  obvious 
application  ;  and  consider  whether,  did  Swedenborg  intend 
any  other  application,  he  would  not,  as  a  writer  of  at  least 
average  carefulness,  have  taken  pains  to  enforce  that  other 
application  by  the  use  of  terms  that  would  be  unmistakable ; 
forasmuch  as  the  application  which  I  maintain  is  a  natural 
and  easy  one,  whereas  the  application  which  you  maintain  is 
one  which  involves,  if  true,  a  new  departure  from  common 
belief  and  from  common  sense.  Common  sense,  indeed, 
might  be  in  error  :  but  if  Swedenborg  sought  to  overthrow 
its  dictates  by  some  new  doctrine,  would  he  have  used  mis- 
takable  language  in  seeking  to  overthrow  them  ? 

You  have  declined  any  f  urther  correspondence  upon  this 
subject ;  which  I  dare  say  is  wise,  for  our  eyes  are  utterly 


46 

unlike.  And  probably  I  am  unwise  in  troubling  you  with 
this  communication.  I  would  not  have  troubled  you  with 
it,  but  for  the  inquiry  you  made  in  your  last  letter  as  to  the 
whereabouts  of  the  passage  with  reference  to  which  this 
communication  begins.  But  if  you  have  the  patience  to  read 
through  this  letter,  perhaps  you  will  have  the  patience  to 
think  over  what  is  in  it.  I  hope  so ;  for  what  I  have  written  has 
no  other  end  in  view  than  the  supremacy  of  the  two  grand  doc- 
trines of  the  Coming  Church ;  viz.,  the  doctrine,  first, of  Repent- 
ance, and  second,  the  worship  of  a  Man-God  of  sheer  human 
bodily  outline,  who,  by  means  of  such  outline,  is  lovable  be- 
cause approachable  in  thought,  and  is  that  very  He  who 
arose  from  the  dead  with  flesh  and  bones,  quite  able  to  be 
touched,  and  who  is  utterly  and  forever  to  be  distinguished 
from  either  the  inmost  activity  of  Nature,  or  any  essence  of 
natural  or  spiritual  substance,  and  who  consequently  is  not 
at  present  either  the  inmost  life  or  the  inmost  essence  of  a 
single  particle  of  spiritual  or  natural  created  substance ;  for- 
asmuch as  all  those  particles  (even  the  first  particles  of  all, 
such  as  are  in  the  spiritual  sun)  possess  no  life  whatever, 
whether  original  or  supplied,  but  are  inmostly  dead,  and 
neither  inmostly,  outmostly  nor  intermediately  are  His 
present  Substance,  but  at  their  creation  and  before  this  earth 
was  made,  were  rejected  from  His  Body  and  thereby  ceased 
to  be  He,  although  they  did  not  cease  to  be  real  (see  Div. 
Love  and  Wis.,  n.  291  to  294).  Open,  I  beseech  you,  your 
sight  organs  intellectual,  and  see  that  Life  (except  in  the  sub- 
stance of  God's  own  Divine  Body)  is  not  substance,  but  is  a 
mere  agitation  imparted  to  dead  substances  ;  and  distinguish 
well,  I  beseech  you,  between  substance  and  mere  agitation 
of  substance. 

How  Do  SPHERES  EMANATE  ? 

I  think  that  you,  together  with  that  large  class  of  minds 
which  are  in  unison  with  you,  will  omit  to  avail  of  a  great 


47 

benefit  to  spiritual  clear-seeing,  should  you  omit  to  consider  in 
real  idea  (that  is  to  say,  in  pictorial  mental  form,  summoning 
before  the  mind  a  real  picture)  what  Swedenborg  says  in  the 
Divine  Love  and  Wisdom  at  n.  291  to  n.  294,  about  the 
sphere  which  emanates  from  and  surrounds  the  Man-God, 
and  about  the  sphere  which  emanates  from  and  surrounds 
each  man,  each  animal,  each  vegetable,  each  mineral ;  which 
sphere  is  different  in  each  case  according  to  the  being  or  ob- 
ject from  which  it  emanates ;  the  sphere  thus  emanating  from 
the  Man-God  being  what  is  called  the  spiritual  Sun,  being 
composed  of  substances  which  have  emanated  from  His  Body 
and  become  thereby  devoid  of  life,  and  are  no  longer  He,  yet 
are  agitated  throughout  by  the  wave  of  motion  propagated 
from  His  Heart  and  Lungs,  against  which  motive  pulse  they 
react,  and  thereby  are  enabled  to  beat  and  pulse  with  motion 
which  when  communicated,  through  transmitting  or  non-ab- 
sorbent media,  to  spiritual  substances  that  have  been  organ- 
ized into  forms  more  or  less  imitative  of  the  Divine  or  Man- 
Form,  causes  and  maintains  in  those  substances  an  imitative 
agitation  which  is  their  very  life.  Now  Swedenborg  says 
that  the  sphere  which  is  the  spiritual  Sun  is  composed  of 
substances  which  constantly  emanate ;  and  he  says  that  this 
constant  emanation  is  like  that  which  constantly  goes  on  from 
any  human  being,  etc.,  etc.  If  I  understand  aright  yourself 
and  all  those  gentlemen  whose  minds  are  as  your  own,  you 
all  regard  these  statements  as  meaning  that  the  sum  total  of 
all  the  substances  which  at  any  instant  compose  the  spiritual 
sun  does  at  each  moment  thus  emanate ;  and  you  do  not  re- 
gard them  as  meaning  that  only  somewhat  of  that  sphere 
does  at  each  moment  emanate.  But  Swedenborg  says  that 
with  the  emanating  sphere  called  the  spiritual  Sun,  the  case 
is  not  otherwise  (as  to  its  emanation)  than  it  is  with  the 
emanating  sphere  about  any  man,  animal,  tree  or  mineral ; 
Therefore,  I  shall  understand  that  you  all  believe  that  the 
sum  total  of  the  sphere  surrounding  any  created  being  or 
object  does  in  like  manner  at  each  instant  emanate ;  and  that 


48 

the  emanation  which  is  thus  always  going  on  is  not  gradual,  or 
an  emanation  of  some  part  of  the  emanating  sphere.  You,  in 
other  words,  believe  that  the  sphere  in  its  totality  is  each 
moment  freshly  sent  forth.  Now  what  I  want  to  get  from 
you  is  this,  viz.,  that  you  should  ask  yourselves  whether  this 
last  can  be  true,  and  whether  it  is  according  to  reason ;  also 
that  you  should  ask  yourselves  what  next  becomes  of  such 
a  whole  emanated  sphere  when  it  shall  be  swiftly  and  at  the 
next  moment  replaced  (as  you  think  it  is  each  moment  re- 
placed) by  another  fresh  whole  sphere  issuing  forth — as,  in 
your  belief,  such  sphere  does  each  instant  issue.  I  would  ask 
this — The  regular  and  reasonable  course  of  emanation  from 
©very  created  thing,  is  it  not  as  follows,  viz.,  that  the  surround- 
ing sphere  is  only  gradually  renewed ;  being  dissipated  little 
by  little  upon  its  circumference,  and  being  freshly  supplied, 
little  by  little,  from  the  central  source  of  supply.  Is  not  the 
reasonable  course  as  follows,  viz. — That  as  to  the  correspond- 
ing sphere  constantly  emanating  from  the  Man-God  (who 
has  created  all  things  from  His  own  substance  which  has  been 
thus  put  off  from  Him  an  d  thereby  has  ceased  to  be  He)  the 
sphere  be  only  gradually  renewed ;  the  substances  at  the  cir- 
cumference passing  off  (at  various  crises  of  creative  energy) 
and  becoming  substances  of  more  composite  nature ;  which 
more  composite  substances,  in  their  turn,  are  to  be  again  re- 
composed — in  every  case  to  be  re-composed  by  discrete 
degrees,  like  as  with  the  recompositions  of  the  coir  fibre,  the 
rope-yarn,  the  strands,  etc.,  etc. — all  this  being  effected  (in 
the  prior  stages)  by  atmospheres,  as  Swedenborg  says,  i.  e., 
by  successive  recompositions  of  atmospheric  substance  which 
have  not  yet  reached  even  a  fluid  state ;  and  the  totality 
of  the  spiritual  sun  being  maintained  near  the  centre  of  that 
sphere,  by  fresh  emanation  of  substance  ;  which  emanation 
steadily  supplies  the  waste  of  the  remoter  substance  which 
has  been  thrown  off  as  aforesaid  from  the  circumference ; 
and  the  constant  emanation  (losing  substance  ever  in  part,  yet 
ever  renewed  in  part)  forming,  despite  all  changes,  a  sphere 


49 

which  on  the  whole  is  a  constant  identity  to  be  denominated 
the  spiritual  Sun ;  the  process  of  emanation  being  a  constant 
process  by  virtue  of  being  only  a  gradual  process ; 
and  being  a  constant  process  in  this  sense  alone  and 
in  this  manner  alone.  Might  it  please  you  to  compare,  for 
rationality  and  coherence,  this  theory  and  your  theory  of  in- 
stant total  dissipation  and  instant  total  renewal  ?  For  these 
two  theories,  as  you  see,  are  utterly  opposed.  Remember 
that  Swedenborg  says  that  the  emanation  from  God  is  like 
the  emanation  from  a  mineral.  Consider,  then,  what  this 
process  of  emanation  must  be  with  a  mineral ;  consider 
whether  a  mineral's  whole  sphere  is  each  instant  renewed,  or 
whether  only  a  part  of  it  is  is  each  instant  renewed ;  and 
then  think  the  same — as  by  Swedenborg  you  must — about 
God's  sphere  called  the  spiritual  Sun,  which  Sun  is  the  prime 
substance  out  of  which  all  substances  have  been  composed. 
Let  me  add  something  further ;  since  in  addressing  my- 
self to  your  own  form  of  mind,  I  perhaps  or  probably  may 
address  a  class. 


CONTIGUITY  AND  REACTION. 

You  think  that  the  manner  in  which  the  various  things  of 
the  universe  are  receptive  of  God  is  this,  viz.,  that  God's  sub- 
stance spreads  out  or  reaches  out  into  them ;  and  you  think 
(as  the  lately-written  little  tract  on  Matter,  published  by  the 
New  Church  Board  of  Publication,  clearly  holds)  that  the  in- 
most essence  of  each  particle  of  matter  is  still  He.  I,  on  the 
other  hand,  hold  that  from  and  after  the  creation  of  dead 
Substance  (long,  long  ago  effected,  being  the  creation  of  the 
sphere  called  the  spiritual  Sun),  there  is  nothing  of  God's 
substance  in  any  created  substance,  but  that  the  inmost  of 
each  created  substance  was,  once  for  all,  set  utterly  off  from 
Him,  and  was  thenceforth,  to  its  very  bottom,  other  than  He. 
You  hold  that  an  inmost  essence  which  constitutes  its  very 


50 

reality  is  steadily  communicated  to  every  created  substance, 
living  or  dead.  I  hold  that  the  inmost  essence  of  every  par- 
ticle of  all  created  substance,  whether  of  dead  created  things 
or  of  living  created  things,  was  indeed  once  God,  but  at  the 
creation  of  that  Sun  did  once-for-all  pass  out  of  Him,  and 
thus  lost  its  life  or  living  character,  yet  could  not  but  pre- 
serve its  reality;  which  reality  did  thenceforth  need  no 
Divine  assistance  or  other  interference  for  the  preservation 
of  its  reality.  In  like  manner  in  respect  to  any  living  thing, 
you  hold  that  the  way  in  which  it  receives  God  is  by  a  spread- 
ing or  continuation  of  His  substance  into  it — of  course,  into 
its  inmost.  I  hold  that  a  living  thing  receives  not  a  whit  of 
God's  substance  ;  just  as  a  dead  thing  receives  not  a  whit  of 
His  substance ;  but  that  each  living  thing  receives  only  a 
stream  of  impulse,  literally  impulse,  and  only  impulse ;  and 
that  this  impulse  is  communicated  to  the  spiritual  substances 
in  that  living  thing,  by  transmission  through  spiritual  sub- 
stances lying  outside  of  that  living  thing  ;  which  substances 
are  called  spiritual  atmospheres;  the  reactive  power  and 
consequent  reaction  of  each  of  whose  atmospheric  particles 
enables  those  atmospheres  to  transmit  the  impulsive  energy 
instead  of  absorbing  it ;  just  as  the  reaction  of  aerial  parti- 
cles constitutes  their  capacity  of  transmitting  that  steady  repe- 
tition of  thrusts  which  is  called  Sound,  or  as  the  reaction  of 
ethereal  particles  constitutes  their  capacity  of  transmitting 
the  steady  repetition  of  thrusts  which  is  called  Light  (Apoc. 
Exp.,  nn.  1121, 1122,  continuations).  In  a  vacuum  this  trans- 
mission, says  Swedenborg,  could  not  take  place  (see  Div. 
Love  and  Wis.,  n.  82);  for  the  transmission  of  energy 
through  media  is  by  virtue  of  the  reaction  of  each  particle  of 
that  substance  of  which  the  medium  consists,  each  particle 
being  separate  from  all  other  particles,  and  receiving  by  it- 
self the  impulse — sunt  substantiae  discretee,  SINGILLATIM  re- 
cipiunt  solem,  says  he  (Div.  Love  and  Wis.,  n.  174).  It  is 
evident  that  just  as  in  a  vacuum  there  can  be  no  transmis- 
sion of  thrust  or  energy,  so  in  a  medium,  there  can  be  no 


51 

transmission  except  there  be  "  contiguity  "  between  the  par- 
ticles of  the  medium  ;  for  if  there  is  not  such  contiguity, 
there  will  be  as  many  little  vacuums  as  there  are  particles  in 
the  line  of  transmission ;  and  any  little  vacuum  will  be  as 
fatal  to  transmission  as  one  big  or  universal  vacuum  would 
be.  The  "  contiguity  "  of  particle  to  particle  need  not,  how- 
ever, be  constantly  maintained  ;  it  will  be  sufficient  if  a 
"  contiguity  "  between  a  particle  and  its  neighbor  be  brought 
about  at  each  instant  of  thrust ;  and  such  a  "  contiguity  v  is 
effected  by  means  of  the  "  swing  "  (as  it  is  called)  which  each 
particle  undergoes  under  the  impulse  of  the  thrust ;  this 
"  swing "  causes  a  particle  to  strike  against  the  particle 
which  is  in  front  of  it,  and  thus  to  become  for  an  instant 
"  contiguous  "  to  that  particle  in  front ;  and  the  instant  that 
this  "  contiguity  "  is  effected,  the  force  of  the  thrust  is  trans- 
mitted from  the  first  particle  to  the  second  particle ;  thus  it 
comes  about  that  all  transmission  of  action  or  force  is  owing 
to  reaction  in  the  particles  (Div.  Love  and  Wis.,  n.  68)  and 
to  "  contiguity  "  between  the  particles  (Div.  Love  and  Wis., 
n.  56).  Now  the  first  source  of  all  life-energy  or  mot  us  vitce, 
is  the  Heart  and  Lungs  of  the  Divine  Man  ;  and  the  very  be- 
ginning of  transmission  of  life-energy  from  Him.  is  to  be 
found  at  the  internal  concave  surface  of  the  sphere  of  those 
substances  which  have  emanated  from  Him  and  still 
hem  Him  about  (ilium  circumstipant,  Div.  Love  and  Wis., 
n.  291) ;  and  the  life-beat  from  His  Heart  and  Lungs  is 
able  to  be  communicated  from  Him  to  the  substances  of 
that  surrounding  sphere,  by  virtue  of  this,  viz.,  that  those 
substances  are  "  contiguous  "  to  His  Body  (contiguae  cor- 
poris  ejus,  Div.  Love  and  Wis.,  n.  291),  and,  because  con- 
tiguous, are  able  to  be  kept  in  motion  by  the  motion 
of  His  Heart  and  Lungs  (continue  actuatce  per  binosjontes 
motus  vitce,  Div.  Love  and  Wis.,  n.  291) ;  and  this  sphere 
of  substance  nearest  or  adjoining  to  Him  being  in 
throbbing  motion,  keeps  a-throbbing  the  atmospheres 
which,  being  situate  outside  of  it,  are  "  contiguous  "  to  it 


52 

(atmospheras  insuas  activitates  excitent,  Div.  Love  and  Wis., 
n.  291) ;  and  this  communication  of  throbbing  (communi- 
cated always  by  means  of  "  contiguity  "  of  one  particle  to 
another,  whereby  the  impetus  given  to  one  particle  is  com- 
municated to  the  next  particle,  the  substance  of  one  particle 
never  spreading  or  continuing  itself  into  the  next  particle — 
nonper  continuum  sed  per  contiguum,  Div.  Love  and  Wis., 
n.  56 — but  only  its  motion  being  spread  to  the  next  or  con- 
tiguous particle),  this  spread  of  the  throbbing,  I  say,  is 
solely  by  virtue  of  "  contiguity  "  of  the  substances  through 
which  the  throb  is  passing ;  thus  it  is  that  Swedenborg 
(Div.  Love  and  Wis.,  n.  56)  in  referring  to  this  very  subject, 
viz.,  the  reception  of  Life  by  every  living  thing,  says,  that 
these  living  things  are  alive  not  by  virtue  of  God's  spreading 
into  them,  but  by  virtue  of  "  contiguity  "  as  between  them 
and  God ;  that  it  is  non  per  continuum  sed  per  contiguum — 
Div.  Love  and  Wis.,  n.  56 — that  they  get  to  receive  God ;  and 
that  by  means  of  "  contiguity  "  alone,  and  not  at  all  by  means 
of  some  imagined  passing-into-them  of  His  Substance,  is  their 
conj  unction  with  Him ;  and  that  all  this  is  able  to  take  place  be- 
cause all  things  which  have  been  created  are  (from  creation) 
such  in  the  arrangement  or  "  lay  "  of  their  respective  sub- 
stances that,  in  nearer  or  further  degree,  they  "  fit "  to  Him 
(est  enim  conveniens,  Div.  Love  and  Wis.,  n.  56/  concordent 
quia  desumpta  ex  formis  corporis  illorum,  Div.  Love  and 
Wis.,  n.  294 ;  conveniat  vitce  ejus,  Div.  Love  and  Wis. ,  n. 
55 ;  moreover  consider,  yet  for  the  material  body,  the  words 
"quceprorsus  concordant  *  *  *  et  apte  conjungi  pos- 
sent,  Apoc.  Exp.,  n.  1207,  continuatio). 


A   SPIKITUAL  ABOMINATION. 

Your  thought  of  God's  still  living  substance  as  spreading 
or  "continuing"  itself  forth  so  as  to  be,  and  to  presently  con- 
stitute, the  inmost  of  any  created  substance,  instead  of  there 


53 

being  merely  an  Agitation  (inotus  vitce,  Div.  Love  and  Wis., 
n.  291)  spreading  itself  forth  by  the  sole  means  of  contiguity 
(Div.  Love  and  Wis.,  n.  56,  n.  291)  between  reactive  sub- 
stances (Div.  Love  and  Wis.,  n.  58,  n.  68)  is  horrible  to  Sweden- 
borg  ;  and  he  says  (Div.  Love  and  Wis.,  n.  55),  in  connection 
with  this  question  of  how  living  things  receive  God,  that  if 
there  were  anything  of  God  continued  into  a  created  thing, 
that  thing  would  be  God  Himself  ;  and  that  the  things  which 
have  been  created  by  God  do  no  more  have  God  continued  or 
spread  into  them  than  a  man's  self  is  continued  or  spread 
into  that  sphere  which  surrounds  a  man  and  belongs  to  a 
man.  That  this  is  the  meaning  of  that  passage,  you  will  see 
on  comparing  closely  the  words  "  like  that  in  man  which  has 
been  derived  out  of  his  life,  but  from  which  his  life  has  been 
withdrawn,  and  is  such  in  its  nature  that  it  fits  in  with  his 
life  yet  still  is  not  his  life  "  (Div.  Love  and  Wis.,  n.  55)  with 
the  words  of  the  corresponding  passage  at  n.  294  of  the 
same  work,  where,  in  speaking  of  the  substances  of  the 
spiritual  Sun,  he  says,  "They  are  not  life  in  itself,  but  have 
been  stripped  of  all  life  in  itself,  just  as  those  things  which 
flow  forth  from  an  angel  or  from  a  man  and  make  the  spheres 
that  surround  either,  are  not  the  angel  and  are  not  the 
man,  but  are  from  the  angel  and  from  the  man,  stripped  of 
the  man's  life,  stripped  of  the  angel's  life  ;  and  are  things 
which  do  in  no  other  sense  make  one  with  the  angel 
or  with  the  man,  than  in  the  sense  that  they  are  in 
accord  with  the  angel  or  with  the  man,  forasmuch  as 
they  have  been  taken  from  the  forms  of  the  body  of  the 
angel  or  of  the  man,  which  forms  were  forms  of  life  whilst 
they  were  in  the  angel  or  in  the  man,  but  now  are  in  the 
angel  or  man  no  longer."  Kegard  well  this  passage,  for  in 
it  you  can  read  how  much  of  God's  substance  is  now  present 
in  any  created  substance ;  that  is  to  say,  you  can  read,  and 
must  read,  that  not  one  atom  of  His  substance  is  present  in 
any  atom  of  created  substance.  So  much  for  substance. 


54 

LIFE   is  PROPELLED   BY   CONTIGUITY  AND   REACTION. 

Next,  as  to  the  life  of  certain  forms  of  substance,  viz.,  forms 
vegetable,  animal,  human,  angelic,  diabolic.  If  you  will  bear 
in  mind  the  natural  truths  relating  to  the  manner  of  the 
propulsion  of  the  light  waves,  and  remember  how  this  pro- 
pulsion is  maintained  by  virtue  of  " contiguity  "  and  "reac- 
tion "  in  the  ethereal  particles,  and  how  an  image  in  the 
looking-glass,  for  instance,  is  steadily  maintained  by  virtue 
of  such  "  contiguity  "  and  "  reaction  " ;  that  is,  firstly,  by 
virtue  of  "  contiguity  "  and  "  reaction  "  between  a  man's  real 
face  and  the  particles  of  ether  contiguous  to  his  skin,  by 
virtue  of  which  "  contiguity  "  and  "  reaction  "  the  quiverings 
or  motus  of  the  surface  of  his  skin — which  "motus"  in 
its  various  kinds  is  what  we  call  "  color  " — are  communicated 
to  the  ether  again  ;  and,  next  in  order,  by  virtue  of  the 
"  contiguity "  and  "  reaction  "  between  each  successively 
agitated  particle  of  ether  in  the  line  of  propulsion  of  the 
wave;  and,  thirdly,  by  virtue  of  the  "contiguity"  and  "re- 
action "  between  the  thus  agitated  particles  of  ether  and  the 
smooth  surface  of  the  quicksilver  at  the  back  of  the  glass 
plate — if  you  will  bear  in  mind,  I  say,  this  transmitted 
motus  as  being  transmitted  throughout  by  virtue  of  "  the 
contiguous  "  and  not  a  whit  by  virtue  of  "  the  continuous  " 
(Div.  Love  and  Wis.,  n.  56),  you  will  see  how  it  is  and 
why  it  is  that  Swedenborg  says  (Div.  Love  and  Wis.,  n.  56) 
that  the  conjunction  of  God  with  a  living  thing  is  such 
that  it  is  like  the  conjunction  maintained  between  a 
real  man  and  his  image  in  a  glass ;  and  you  will  see  why 
it  is  that  Swedenborg  says  that  there  is  nothing  of  God 
in  any  created  thing;  just  as  (says  he)  there  is  nothing 
of  a  man  in  his  image  in  a  looking-glass,  although  the 
man  is  visible  there  in  the  looking-glass  (Div.  Love  and 
Wis.,  n.  58).  I  think  you  will,  in  spite  of  your  preconceived 
opinions,  confess  that  no  substance  comes  forth  from  a  man's 
face  or  enters  the  looking-glass ;  I  think  you  will  admit  that 


55 

the  color  and  shape  of  his  face  (i.e.,  the  rate  of  the  "  motus  " 
or  vibration,  and  the  outline  of  the  vibrating  surface),  is 
merely  imitated  in  the  form  of  motion  of  the  substance  of 
the  quicksilver.  That  is,  you  will  admit  that  only  the  form  of 
his  vibrating  surface,  and  not  the  substance  of  his  vibrating 
surface  is  transmitted  to  the  surface  of  the  quicksilver — in 
other  words,  that  the  quicksilver's  surface  merely  vibrates  with 
the  same  rate  of  motion  with  the  motus  existing  on  the  sur- 
face of  the  man's  real  skin,  and  merely  possesses  a  similar 
outline  of  vibrating  surface.  Just  that  same  is  the  truth,  as 
between  God's  life  or  spiritual  "  motus  "  on  the  one  hand, 
and  the  life  or  spiritual '"  motus  "  of  created  living  things,  on 
the  other  hand.  If  God  withdrew  Himself  an  instant,  all 
the  life  or  "  motus  "  would  instantly  vanish  from  man,  just 
as  a  man's  face  will  vanish  instantly  from  a  glass  if  the  man 
withdraw  himself,  but  the  quicksilver  itself  will  by  no  means 
be  annihilated  or  even  be  a  whit  diminished  ;  so  neither 
would  any  created  substance  be  annihilated  or  diminished 
did  God  withdraw  Himself.  Nay,  did  He  not  at  their  very 
creation  wholly  withdraw  His  life  from  all  created  sub- 
stance (sunt  orbata  mta  in  se,  Div.  Love  and  Wis.,  n.  294)  ? 
For  is  He  not  Life  itself  (vita  in  se  spectata,  quce  Deus, 
Apoc.  Exp.,  n.  1121  cont.)  ?  And  since  from  those  substances 
all  life  withdrew  (Div.  Love  and  Wis.,  n.  294)  must  it  not 
be  that  no  whit  of  God  Himself,  but  only  His  picture  as  in  a 
looking-glass,  is  any  longer  in  any  of  them  (sicut  imago 
hominis  in  speculo,  in  quo  quidem  homo  apparet,  sed  usque 
in  ilia  nihil  hominis  est,  Div.  Love  and  Wis.,  n.  59)  ?  Yet, 
albeit  created  substances  have  no  whit  of  His  living  sub- 
stance within  them,  they  are  real,  though  dead.  Let  us 
stamp  our  feet  upon  the  solid  ground,  and  let  us  cease  to 
dream  of  phantasms.  Let  us  do  this,  not  because  Sweden- 
borg  says  that  the  truth  is  such,  and  says  that  such  and  such 
things  are  phantastical ;  but  because  the  facts  are  such  as 
they  are.  As  for  example,  let  us  see  for  ourselves  that  when 
the  respective  sources  of  motion  which  maintain  an  image 


56 

in  the  glass  are  removed  or  destroyed,  removed  or  destroyed 
must  on  the  instant  be  that  reproduced  image  ;  for  that  im- 
age is  but  a  secondary,  repeated  or  imitative  agitation.  Even 
so  with  the  life  of  angels,  devils,  men,  animals  and  vege- 
tables. You,  on  the  contrary,  hold  that  all  substance  con- 
stantly flows  out  from  God,  and  that  it  is  constantly  and 
ever  a-fresh  received  by,  and  steadily  constitutes,  the  inmost 
essence  of  each  particle  of  created  substance.  How  can  this 
be,  if,  as  Swedenborg  says,  the  reception  of  God  by  created 
things,  is  only  by  mere  "  contiguity,"  and  not  at  all  by  an 
imagined  extending  of  Himself  into  them  (non  per 
continuum,  Div.  Love  and  Wis.,  n.  56,  n.  55)  ?  How  can 
this  be,  if,  as  Swedenborg  says,  there  is  no  more  of  God  in 
any  of  the  contents  of  the  Universe  than  there  is  of  a  man  in 
his  mere  picture  in  a  mirror  (Div.  Love  and  Wis.,  n.  59)  ? 
Unless,  as  perhaps  you  think,  all  spiritual  and  material  sub- 
stance is  unreal,  like  as  a  mere  image  in  a  glass  is  unreal. 
But,  even  though  that  image  is  unreal,  can  an  unreal  image 
exist,  without  there  being  some  real,  not  ideal,  quicksilver 
there  1  And  this  quicksilver  is  not  only  real,  but — what  is 
fatal  to  your  theory — is  a  thing  quite  other  than  the  Man 
whose  image  is  reproduced  upon  its  surface. 


SPHERES  RADIATE  MOTION,  NOT  SUBSTANCE. 

You  think  that  the  whole  sum  total  of  the  sphere  called 
the  spiritual  Sun  does  each  instant,  in  its  sum  total,  go  forth 
from  God,  instead  of  thinking  that  what  goes  forth  from 
that  sphere  each  instant  is  a  mere  beat  or  thrust  upon  sub- 
stances which  had  gone  forth  already  long  before  ;  and  you 
think  that  it  is  by  an  exudation  of  substance  itself,  instead  of 
an  out-going  of  a  wave  of  mere  motion  propagated  through 
already  created  substances,  that  Affection  and  Thought  are 
propagated  from  God  to  man. 

Read  I  beg  you,  D.  L.  W.,  n.  42,  where  you  will  read 


57 

that  there  is  absolutely  no  going  forth  of  any  substance  of 
affection  and  thought  (nihil  a  se  emittunt\  but  that  Affec- 
tion and  Thought  all  take  place  within  the  being  who  has 
them,  being  mere  shif tings  of  arrangement  (sunt  modo  inuta- 
tiones)  effected  in  certain  substances,  which  substances  are 
there  in  him  and  do  not  go  out  of  him  in  the  least  (non  sunt 
entia  *  *  *  fluentia) ;  consequently  neither  do  their 
shif  tings  or  changes  go  on  outside  of  him  ;  but  that,  neverthe- 
less, these  changes  propagate  their  motion  through  the 
sphere  which  has  already  gone  out  of  him,  and  which 
is  already  outside  of  him,  and  which  encompasses  him ;  and 
thence,  through  that  surrounding  sphere,  these  changes  pro- 
pagate motion  into  the  more  distant  surrounding  atmosphere, 
and  thus  produce  a  perception  which  is  as  the  presence  of  him 
elsewhere  far  and  near.  Atmosphceras  in  suas  activitates 
excitent,  et  per  id  sistant  perceptionem  sicut  proesentiam 
illius  apud  alias,  et  sic  quod  NON  sir  ALIA  SPELERA  AFFECTIONTJM 
ET  COGITATIONUM  qucz  exit  et  continuatur;  quia  affectiones 
sunt  meri  status  formarum  mentis  IN  illo,  Div.  Love  and 
Wis.,  n.  291.  It  is  not,  says  Swedenborg,  that  a  sphere  of 
affection  and  thought  goes  forth  out  of  him  ;  but  it  is  that  a 
sphere  of  mere  agitation  of  atmospheres  goes  forth,  and  that 
the  source  of  the  agitation  is  in  his  very  substance ;  and  his 
substance  does  not  go  forth  to  constitute  his  presence  with 
others.  No  otherwise  than  thus,  save  as  in  due  difference 
between  the  Infinite  and  the  finite,  is  God's  presence  with 
created  things.  Review  the  natural  facts  and  you  will  see 
the  spiritual  facts.  Is  it  not  plain  that  the  reproduction  of 
the  image  on  the  sensorium  (by  means  of  activities  of  an 
atmosphere,  as  in  the  case  of  an  image  in  the  looking-glass) 
is  what  produces  the  presence  of  any  spirit  with  others  ;  and 
that  this  same  thing,  in  an  infinite  manner,  is  what  produces 
the  universal  presence  of  the  Lord  with  all  things  that  live, 
i.  e.,  with  all  things  that  absorb  or  repeat  in  themselves  the 
agitation  proceeding  from  Him  ?  Is  it  not  by  means  of 
similar  agitation  through  the  spiritual  atmosphere,  that  from 


58 

an  angel  (i.  e. ,  from  his  own,  though  derived  and  unoriginal 
activity)  are  produced  all  changes  in  the  form  or  arrange- 
ment of  spiritual  substance  round  about  him  ;  so  that  he 
makes  and  varies  constantly  thereby  his  own  surroundings  ? 
Not  that  his  surroundings  are  unsubstantial  or  imaginary, 
but  that  they  are  forms  of  most  real  substance.  Not  that  he 
makes  any  substance  there,  but  that  by  his  constantly-pro- 
duced agitations  of  the  intervening  atmospheres,  he  shapes 
the  substance  there  already  made.  Just  as  a  man's  face,  by 
ethereal  vibrations,  constantly  shakes  the  quicksilver  surface, 
and  thus  makes  his  image  in  a  looking-glass,  which  image 
changes  just  according  to  the  changes  in  his  countenance. 
See  Div.  Love  and  Wis,  nn.  322,  63  ;  True  Chr.  Eel.,  n. 
78. 

ACTION  AND  EEACTION. 

The  capability  which  the  particles  of  any  medium  have  of 
transmitting  a  "  motus  "  or  force  depends,  as  I  have  said,  on 
two  elements,  one  of  which  is  the  "  contiguity "  of  the  me- 
dium's particles,  the  other  of  which  is  the  " reaction"  in 
each  particle  (Div.  Love  and  Wis.,  n.  58,  n.  68).  This  reac- 
tion, or  action  back,  will,  in  all  media  (consequently  in  the 
substances  of  the  spiritual  sun  and  of  the  spiritual  atmos- 
pheres), consist  of  two  elements  combined ;  one  of  which  ele- 
ments is  that  it  acts  at  all,  and  the  other  of  which  is  that  it 
is  backward  that  it  acts.  That  part  which  consists  in  its 
acting  at  all,  is  owing  wholly  to  that  which  acts  upon  it 
(Div.  Love  and  Wis.,  n.  68).  The  other  part  (which  consists 
in  its  acting  backward,  or  in  a  direction  opposite  to  the 
action  which  impels  it)  is  owing  to  its  resistance ;  and  this  re- 
sistance is  due  to  something  in  that  thing's  self,  namely,  is 
due  to  something  in  the  particle  that  has  thus  been  moved 
by  the  action  of  a  particle  foreign  to  itself ;  and  that  some- 
thing in  it  is  a  certain  vis  inertice,  owing  to  its  being  in  itself 
inert ;  and  it  is  able  to  be  inert  only  by  virtue  of  this,  viz., 


59 

that  it  is  really  something  in  itself :  for,  if  it  were  not  some- 
thing in  itself,  it  could  not  have  an  vis  inertice  to  oppose  to 
the  vis  which  acts  upon  it.  Nor  can  something  which  is  not 
really  anything  in  itself  be  said  to  "  receive  "  (Div.  Love  and 
Wis.,  n.  68),  or  to  "be  acted  upon"  (Div.  Love  and  Wis.,  n. 
68),  or  to  be  "  a  reagent,"  or  "  continent,"  or  "  containant " 
(Div.  Love  and  Wis.,  58)  of  that  which  is  received  by  it. 
In  order  to  "  receive,"  a  thing  must  be  a  reality,  and  be  some 
other  reality  than  that  which  it  receives.  Still  more  clearly 
must  it  be  a  reality  if  it  is  to  "  react "  against  something 
which  "  acts  "  upon  it :  there  is  no  sane  person  who  cannot 
see  that  all  this  is  necessary.  This  reality  in  the  particle  is 
a  reality  which  it  has  solely  by  virtue  of  its  having  been 
originally  God's  substance,  and  of  its  therefore  being  real 
substance.  In  God  it  was  real  substance  while  it  was  still  a 
portion  of  Him ;  and  when  it  was  cast  out  of  Him  (substantia 
quce  ex  Ipso  exivit,  True  Chr.  Eel.,  n.  33),  it  did  not  lose  re- 
ality, although  it  did  lose  life. 

That  the  reality  in  this  cast-off  substance  is  now  other 
than  God  can  also  be  seen  from  this,  viz.,  that  in 
the  wave  motion  of  the  spiritual  Sun  and  spiritual  atmos- 
pheres, it  (that  is  to  say,  this  inmost  reality  in  each 
of  these  particles)  re-acts  against  the  Divine  motus  or 
effort ;  yet  re-act  it  could  not,  if  it  also  were  in  any  man- 
ner God,  for  thus  God  would  be  acting  contrary  to  Himself; 
moreover  the  very  inmost  of  such  a  particle  is  what  you 
think  is  still  God;  yet  this  inmost  is  its  essence  and  is  what 
thus  re-acts ;  thus  an  inmost  which  is  God  would  be  reacting 
against  God's  self.  I  have  said  that  any  particle's  inmost 
is  its  essence,  yet  by  essence  must  not  be  understood  any 
living  essence;  by  essentia  Swedenborg  usually  means  life, 
i.  e.,  he  means  living  being,  or  the  essence  of  living  being. 


60 

SOUND  AND  LIGHT  ABE  MOTIONS,  NOT  SUBSTANCES. 

I  am  well  aware  that  both  you  and  the  school  to  which 
you  belong  will  not  accept  the  interpretation  I  have  put  on 
Swedenborg's  language  with  regard  to  life  being,  like  sight 
and  sound,  mere  communicated  agitation  and  not  communi- 
cated substance ;  nor  on  his  language  as  to  the  distinction  be- 
tween continuity  and  contiguity ;  nor,  indeed,  on  any  of  his 
language.  I  am  therefore  compelled  to  enforce  my  interpre- 
tation by  Swedenborg's  own  words,  and  to  seethe,  as  it  were, 
your  kid  in  its  mother's  milk.  Listen,  I  pray  you,  to  these 
words  from  his  Principia,  Part  I.,  Chapter  I.  They  ought 
to  suffice  to  convince  you  as  to  his  theory  of  the  nature  of 
Sound  and  Light,  to  whose  mode  of  entry  into  the  ear  and 
eye  he  compares  the  entry  of  all  given  Life.  You  will  see 
that,  with  him,  the  entry  is  the  entry  of  a  motion,  and  not 
of  a  substance. 

"  It  is  known  that  the  undulating  air  flows  into  the 
"  ear,  and  occasions  in  its  tympanum  a  motion  imitative 
"  of  itself,  that  it  afterwards  continues  the  same  motion 
"  throughout  its  malleus,  incus,  cochlea,  and  various 
*'  channels  and  instruments  of  sound,  towards  the  in- 
"  terior  parts  ;  so  that  the  undulation  of  the  air  seems 
"  to  have  formed  a  mechanism  of  its  own,  with  a  view 
'"  to  be  received  and  transmitted  farther  towards  mem- 
"  branes  of  the  same  kind  lying  within,  for  the  recep- 
"  tion  of  sensation.  What  a  wonderful  mechanism  is 
"  apparent  in  the  eye,  where  there  are  so  many  coats, 
"  so  many  humors  and  fibrils,  so  many  nerves  leading 
""  from  them  towards  the  interior  parts — by  means  of 
"  which  whatever  is  received  from  the  ether  in  the  eye, 
"  insinuates  and  propagates  itself  from  thence  towards 
"  the  coats  of  the  same  kind  in  the  meninges,  and  thus 
"  more  and  more  deeply  ;  so  that  the  ether  seems  to 


61 

"  have  formed  in  the  eye  a  mechanism  of  its  own,  by 
"  which  its  undulations  can  be  received,  and  be  farther 
"  transferred  towards  the  interior  parts,  till  sensation  is 
"  experienced.  These  contrivances  and  minute  ma- 
"  chines,  most  exactly  formed,  according  to  the  laws  of 
"  mechanics,  for  the  reception  of  the  modifications  of 
"  the  air  and  ether,  it  is  in  our  power  to  view,  examine, 
"  and  scrutinize  in  all  their  parts,  and  to  see  how  their 
"  membranes  and  coats  are  prolongated,  as  it  were, 
"  from  the  interior  recesses  of  the  head  into  the  light 
"  of  day,  in  order  that  the  elements  may  be  able  to 
"  operate  immediately  upon  them,  and  more  speedily 
"  convey  the  impressed  motions  from  thence  towards 
"  the  interiors;  an  operation  which  is  effected  gradually, 
"  by  first  affecting  the  coats  of  the  same  kind,  and  then 
"  such  as  are  smaller  and  possessed  of  more  acute  sen- 
"  sibility." 

WHAT  SWEDENBORG  MEANS  BY  "CONTIGUITY"  AND  BY  "CON- 
NEXION." 

I  ask  also  your  attention  to  the  following  observations  of 
his  on  contiguity,  and  on  the  perpetual  nexus  from  first  prin- 
ciples to  ultimates — a  nexus  whose  perpetualness  you  think 
is  due  to  efforts  perpetually  repeated  from  moment  to  mo- 
ment, but  which  you  will  see  means,  with  Swedenborg,  a 
nexus  which  is  once  for  all  effected,  and  is  never  repeated, 
save  that  in  each  successive  link  of  the  chain  it  is  repeated, 
and  in  this  sense,  and  this  sense  only,  is  "perpetual."  With 
respect  to  substance  and  its  formation,  as  distinguished  from 
motion  of  substances  and  the  formation  and  continuance  of 
that  motion,  he  says  (I  italicise  here  and  there): 

"  The  mechanism  of  the  world  consists  in  contiguity 
"  without  which,  neither  the  world  nor  its  mechanism 


62 

"  could  exist.  Unless  one  particle  were  to  operate  both 
"  upon  another  and  by  means  of  another,  or  the  whole 
"  mass  were  to  operate  by  all  its  particles  respectively, 
41  and  at  the  same  time  at  a  distance,  nothing  element- 
"  ary,  capable  of  affecting  or  striking  the  least  organ  of 
"  sense,  could  exist.  Contiguity  is  necessary  to  the 
"  production  of  every  operation.  Without  perpetual 
"  connexion  between  the  end  and  the  means, 
"  the  existence  of  elementary  nature,  and  of  the 
"  vegetable  and  animal  natures  thence  originat- 
"  ing,  would  be  impossible.  The  connexion  between 
"  ends  and  means  forms  the  very  life  and  essence  of 
"  nature.  For  nothing  can  originate  from  itself ;  it 
"  must  originate  from  some  other  thing ;  hence  there 
"  must  be  a  certain  contiguity  and  connexion  in  the  ex- 
"  istence  of  natural  things  ;  that  is,  all  things,  in  regard 
'  "  to  their  existence,  must  follow  each  other  in  succes- 
"  sive  order.  Thus  all  things  in  the  world  owe  their 
"  existence  to  their  mutual  dependence  on  each  other, 
"  there  being  a  connexion,  by  mediums,  from  ultimate 
"  to  ultimate,  whence  all  things  have  respect  to  their 
"  first  source  from  which  they  derive  their  existence. 
"  For  if  all  things  had  not  respect  to  their  first  source, 
"  but  only  to  some  intermediate  link,  this  intermediate 
"  would  be  their  ultimate  ;  but  an  intermediate  cannot 
"  exist  but  from  something  prior  to  itself,  and  whatever 
"  exists  from  something  prior  to  itself  cannot  be  the 
"  ultimate,  but  only  an  intermediate  ;  or  else  if  it  were 
"  the  ultimate,  the  world  would  stop  short  at  this  ulti- 
"  mate  and  perish,  because  it  would  have  no  connexion 
"  with  its  proper  ultimate  by  something  antecedent. 
"  These  remarks  have  reference  to  the  subject  of  exist- 
"  ence." 


63 

With  respect  to  motions  in  substances,  or  to  modifications 
of  substances,  or  to  whatever  may  befall  a  substance,  as  dis- 
tinguished from  a  substance  itself ;  thus  with  respect  to  the 
maintenance  of  the/arms  of  organized  substance,  i.  e.y  to  the 
maintenance  of  life  in  the  vegetable  and  animal  kingdoms ; 
and  with  respect  to  the  nexus  of  causation  of  their  life  from 
first  principles  to  ultimates,  and  with  regard  to  that  causa- 
tion as  effected  by  contiguity  and  not  by  continuity,  and 
with  respect  to  their  destruction  if  cut  off  from  the  first 
cause  of  life — a  destruction  which  you  take  to  mean  an  an- 
nihilation of  substance  itself,  whether  an  animal,  vegetable 
or  mineral — he  speaks  as  follows  (I  again  italicise) : 

"  With  respect  to  the  subject  of  contingencies,  or 
"  modes  and  modifications,  which  exist  both  from  ulti- 
"  mate  and  simple  and  from  intermediate  substances, 
"  neither  can  these  be  otherwise  than  continuous  and 
"  mutually  connected,  depending  successively  on  each 
"  other  from  one  end  to  the  other.  Thus  must  all 
"  things,  both  such  as  are  essential  and  such  as  are  con- 
"  tingent,  necessarily  have  a  connexion  with  their  first 
"  substantial  principle;  for  they  proceed  solely  from 
"  simple  or  compound  substances  ;  and  as  these  sub- 
41  stances  depend,  for  their  existence,  mutually  upon 
"  each  other,  it  follows  that  the  modifications  related  to 
"  those  substances  must  be  dependent  on  the  same  con- 
•"  nexion.  We  see  then  that  there  is  contiguity  in  all 
"  things,  and  that  nature  produces  them  by  means  of 
"  the  connexion,  extending  from  one  end  to  the  other, 
"  both  of  substances  and  causes.  Whatever  is  first 
"  produced  by  such  connexion,  must  continue  to  sub- 
"  sist  by  the  same  means.  We  see  in  vegetables  that 
"  there  is  a  connexion  between  the  root  and  the  ex- 
"  tremities,  and  every  part  of  the  extremities  ;  that 
41  there  is  a  connexion  between  the  intermediate  stem 


64 

"  and  the  little  twigs  and  leaves,  by  infinite  filaments 
"  stretching  from  one  shoot,  branch  and  stalk,  into  an- 
"  other,  and  thus  affording  secret  passages  for  the  con- 
tf  tinual  reception  of  aliment.  It  is  in  such  a  contiguity 
"  that  vegetation  itself  consists  :  and  the  life  of  the 
"  vegetable  afterwards  continues  in  the  same  contiguity 
"  and  connexion ;  the  part  where  it  ceases  no  longer 
"  grows,  but  withers  and  dies,  and  drops  useless  from 
"  its  stem.  The  case  is  the  same  in  animals ;  parts 
"  cover  over  parts,  and  grow  by  contiguity.  Both  the 
"  nervous  and  membraneous  system  is  coherent  and 
"  contiguous.  There  is  no  part  in  the  whole  animal  to 
"  which  the  fibres,  muscles,  veins  and  arteries  do  not 
"  extend ;  no  fibre,  which  is  not  derived  and  ramified 
"  from  some  larger  nerve ;  no  nerve,  which  does  not 
"  proceed  from  the  medulla  spinalis  or  oblongata  and 
"  its  teguments;  and  no  channel,  but  what  originates  from 
"  that  great  one  which  flows  immediately  from  the 
"  heart.  The  medulla  and  its  teguments,  with  which 
"  the  nerves  are  connected,  are  in  contiguity  with  the 
"  membranes  of  the  whole  brain  ;  its  grosser  coats  are 
"  contiguous  to  its  more  sub  tile  ones  ;  the  dura  mater  to 
"  the  pia  mater ;  the  pia  mater  to  the  more  subtile 
"  parts ;  and  thus  the  contiguity  is  continued  till  it 
"  arrives  at  those  simple,  active  substances,  from  which 
"  all  motions  or  affections  can  afterwards  reflect  and 
"  expand  themselves  to  the  most  subtile  principles  of 
"  all.  Hence  it  is  manifest  that  there  is  a  continual  con- 
"  nexion  of  the  whole  body  with  its  minutest  parts.  If 
"  the  connexion  with  any  part  were  broken,  that  part 
"  would  no  longer  partake  of  the  life  of  the  rest  of  the 
"  body,  but  would  die,  having  lost  its  contiguity.  If  a 
"  connecting  part,  mediating  between  the  grosser  and 
"  more  subtile  motions  or  affections  of  the  body  were 


65 

"  to  be  broken,  a  resemblance  of  death  would  be  super- 
"  induced  upon  the  part.  Hence  also  the  poets  have 
"  compared  the  life  and  fates  of  man  to  a  continuous 
"  thread  woven  by  the  Parcse,  and  feigned  that  if  this 
"  thread  were  anywhere  severed,  his  life  would  also  be 
"  cut  off  and  all  the  series  of  his  destinies." 

Whether  my  statement  is  truthful  of  what  Swedenborg 
means  by  "  contiguity  "  when  he  says  that  creatures  receive 
God  not  by  any  continuity  of  His  substance  into  them,  but 
solely  by  contiguity  (Div.  Love  and  Wis.,  no.  56),  you  may 
judge  perhaps  from  what  he  further  says  as  follows : 

"  But  to  return  to  our  elementary  world.  If  we  ad- 
"  mit  a  contiguity,  we  immediately  have  a  cause  for 
"  every  contingent  occurrence  ;  but  if  there  be  no  con- 
"  tiguity,  no  contingent  circumstance  can  occur  in  the 
"  world,  because  there  is  no  cause  for  its  occurring 
"  either  in  one  manner  or  another.  The  cause  and 
"  reason  of  all  effects  and  phenomena  is  to  be  found  in 
"  contiguity  and  connexion.  If  this  contiguum  of  na- 
"  ture  were  to  begin  to  be  diminished  and  rarefied,  the 
"  world,  as  to  the  phenomena  existing  in  it,  and  every 
"  part,  would  pant,  as  it  were,  for  breath  and  be  reduced 
"  to  its  last  extremity.  Thus  all  things  depend  on 
"  something  contiguous  to  them ;  as  the  body  depends 
"  on  light,  hearing  on  the  air,  sight  on  the  ether.  The 
"  equilibration  of  all  things  in  the  elements  depends 
"  also  on  contiguity.  The  air  itself  could  not  undergo 
"  and  communicate  pressure,  according  to  its  altitude, 
"  nor  could  it  force  up  the  mercury  in  the  barometer  to 
"  indicate  the  approaching  weather^  unless  its  particles 
"  were  contiguous  to  and  incumbent  upon  each  other, 
"  and  unless  the  pressure  and  weight  of  its  lowest  par- 
"  tides,  or  those  nearest  the  earth,  were  balanced  with 


66 

"  those  which  are  above  the  clouds :  neither  could  any 
"  particle  of  air  expand  itself,  nor  could  so  exact  a  pro- 
"  portion  exist  between  the  degree  of  its  expansion  and 
"  the  superincumbent  weight,  without  the  contiguity, 
"  continuous  action,  and  consequently  equal  pressure,  of 
41  the  circumfluent  particles.  Neither  without  contiguity 
"  could  the  air  undulate  so  distinctly  and  harmoniously, 
*'  or  actuate  the  drum  of  the  ear  in  a  manner  conforma- 
""  ble  to  itself,  and  operate  as  it  does  in  every  direction. 
*'  Without  the  existence  of  other  more  subtile  elements 
"  the  particles  of  which  are  contiguous  to  each  other, 
"  from  the  sun  to  our  globe,  by  means  of  which  a  con- 
"  tiguity  is  effected  between  the  sun  and  the  eye,  it 
"  would  be  impossible  for  the  eye  to  behold  the  sun  ; 
"  there  would  be  no  light,  and  no  sight  or  perception 
"  of  light ;  but  as  the  eye  enjoys  the  sight  and  sensation 
"  of  objects  which  are  nevertheless  at  a  distance,  it  is  a 
"  sign  that  there  is  some  kind  of  contiguity  between 
"  itself  and  these  objects,  such  as  the  sun,  the  stars, 
"  and  the  planets.  In  short,  no  reason  can  be  assigned 
"  for  any  phenomenon,  unless  we  admit  the  existence 
"  of  continuity  of  connexion ;  for  no  phenomenon  can 
"  can  exist  except  in  something  contiguous.  *  *  * 

"  Unless  a  motion  is  able  to  penetrate  successively, 
"  by  means  of  contiguity,  from  grosser  principles  to- 
"  wards  such  as  are  more  subtile,  it  either  stops  in 
"  grosser  or  mediate  principles,  or  passes  into  a  state 
"  of  obscurity.  In  proportion,  therefore,  as  a  man's 
"  store  of  experience  or  experiments  is  greater,  and  its 
"  disposition  and  distribution  through  the  organs  is 
"  more  perfect ;  in  proportion,  also,  as  the  harmony  of 
"  his  mediate  organs  is  more  exact,  and  their  figure 
"  better  adapted  to  the  conveyance  of  every  kind  of 
"  tremors  or  vibrations  ;  and  in  proportion  as  the  pas- 


67 

"  sage  is  more  deeply  opened,  in  series  and  contiguity, 
"  to  the  most  subtile  principles  of  all ;  so  much  the 
"  wiser  may  the  man  become.  *  *  *  For  we  see 
"  that  all  things  are  acted  upon  and  put  in  motion  ac- 
"  cording  to  rules  ;  they  all  flow  from  the  motion  and 
"  situation  of  corpuscles  of  different  figures  in  mutual 
"  contact.  *  *  * 

"  In  such  a  man  we  may  conceive  to  have  existed 
"  such  a  complete  contiguity  throughout  the  parts  of 
"  his  system,  that  every  motion  proceeding  with  a  free 
"  course  from  his  grosser  parts  or  principles,  could  ar- 
"  rive  through  an  uninterrupted  connexion,  at  his  most 
"  subtile  substance  or  active  principle,  there  being 
"  nothing  in  the  way  which  could  cause  the  least  ob- 
"  struction.  Such  a  man  may  be  compared  to  the  world 
"  itself,  in  which  all  things  are  contiguous  from  the  sun 
"  to  the  bottom  of  our  atmosphere  ;  thus  the  solar  rays 
"  proceed  with  an  uninterrupted  course,  and  almost  in- 
"  stantaneously,  by  means  of  the  contiguity  of  the  more 
"  subtile  or  grosser  elements  through  which  they  pass, 
"  through  the  ether  into  the  air,  till  they  arrive  at  the 
"  eye  and  operate  upon  it,  by  virtue  of  such  connexion, 
"  as  if  they  were  present ;  FOR  CONTIGUITY  OCCASIONS  THE 
"  APPEARANCE  OF  PRESENCE.  "  *  *  *  Thus  whatever 
"  presented  itself  to  the  eye  would  immediately  flow, 
"  through  the  little  membranes  put  in  motion  by  its 
"  undulations,  to  those  successively  more  subtile,  till  it 
"  arrived  at  the  most  subtile  principle.  The  case  would 
"  be  the  same  with  motions  occurring  in  the  ear,  smell, 
"  and  taste ;  which  phenomena  would  also  be  most 
"  easily  transmitted  to  the  most  subtile  principle, 
"  through  the  medium  of  the  sight,  and  the  harmony  ol 
"  the  several  senses." 


68 

CAUSES  or  THE  WAR  BETWEEN  SWEDENBOBG  AND  His  FOLLOWERS. 

The  whole  subject  of  God  and  His  "Universe,  of  the 
conjunction  between  them,  and  of  the  relations  between  them, 
is  very  clearly  laid  down  by  Swedenborg,  yet  in  such  terms 
that  it  can  be  seen  only  by  one  who  thinks  with  scientific 
thought  and  not  with  literary  thought.  The  reason  why  it 
can  seem  clear  only  to  one  who  thinks  with  scientific  thought 
is,  that  only  such  a  man  possesses  in  his  mind  the  ideas  or 
mental  pictures  into  which  those  truths  can  be  put,  or,  so  to 
speak,  the  vessels  into  which  those  truths  can  be  poured. 
For  the  ideas  of  scientific  thought  are  ideas  relating  to  facts  / 
i.  e.,  are  ideas  relating  to  things  which  have  actually  been 
done,  and  done  by  the  Divine ;  and  hence  they  are  fit  vessels 
for  spiritual  truth.  But  the  ideas  of  literary  thought  are 
ideas  relating  chiefly  to  man's  diseased  economy  and  to 
man's  illogical  and  incoherent  performances,  and  hence  the 
ideas  which  are  based  on  those  studies  that  are  called  the 
"  humanities "  are  unfit  to  receive  divine  truths,  but  must 
either  kill  them  or  turn  them  upside  down.  This  is  why 
Swedenborg' s  preparation  for  his  mission — which  consisted 
first  of  all  in  understanding  divine  truths  himself — had  to  be 
obtained,  not  through  literary  studies,  but  through  scientific 
studies.  The  same  is  the  reason  why  it  is  taught  (John  HE. 
12),  that  it  is  only  by  believing  earthly  things  that  heavenly 
things  can  be  believed.  The  meaning  there  is,  not  that 
there  must  be  some  prior  practice  in  becoming  credulous, 
before  heavenly  things  can  be  believed ;  but  the  meaning  is 
that  true  belief  is  perception  itself,  and  the  perception  of 
heavenly  truths  cannot  be  had  except  by  and  through  a  per- 
ception of  the  corresponding  truths  of  Nature ;  it  is  for  that 
same  reason  that  the  Lord  spoke  always  in  parables  or  com- 
parisons. The  invisible  is  only  to  be  apprehended  by  ap- 
proaching the  form  and  formation  of  the  visible.  But  the 
manner  in  which  Swedenborg  has  been  treated  by  the  large 
majority  of  his  followers  is  far  otherwise.  In  order  to  un- 


69 

derstand  the  philosophical  part  of  the  New  Church  doctrines, 
there  is  necessary  a  scientific  training,  and  yet  more,  a  habit- 
ually scientific  cast  of  thought  and  of  thinking ;  which  cast 
consists  in  thinking  with,  or  by  help  of,  mental  pictures  of 
actual  facts  and  actual  processes  familiar  to  experience.  In 
order  to  understand  that  portion  of  the  New  Church  doc- 
trines which  is  practical  and  is  far  the  more  important  por- 
tion, this  training  is  not  necessary.  But  even  for  that  more 
important  portion  are  necessary  two  qualifications  whose 
combination  is  most  rare  with  educated  people,  viz.,  first,  that 
God  be  thought  of  in  human  figure,  because  only  thus  is  He 
approachable  and  loveable ;  and,  second,  that  repentance  be 
practiced  steadily  from  the  heart.  Both  the  philosophical 
and  religious  elements  of  the  New  Church  doctrine  meet 
thus  far  with  intense  difficulty  of  reception  by  Swedenborg's 
devoted  readers ;  the  philosophical  element  of  its  doctrine 
meets  with  intense  difficulty  of  reception  by  them,  because 
almost  none  of  his  readers  are  of  a  scientific  cast  of  thought, 
or  think  habitually  by  means  of  ideas  of  natural  facts  ;  and 
the  religious  element  of  its  doctrine  meets  with  intense  dif- 
ficulty of  reception  by  his  readers,  because  the  better  edu- 
cated among  them,  as  among  other  Christians,  are  opposed 
to  the  thought  of  God  as  being  of  man-figure ;  as  may  be 
clearly  seen  on  examining  the  contents  of  Swedenborgian 
periodicals ;  although  the  literal  Man-figure  of  God  distinctly 
outlined  is  the  central  doctrine  of  Swedenborg.  Conse- 
quently the  doctrines  of  the  New  Church  are  largely  con- 
verted into  pantheistic  doctrines  by  Swedenborg's  readers 
and  by  his  so-called  disciples.  In  the  Christian  heart,  if 
Swedenborg  is  to  be  credited — and  the  literature  of  his  fol- 
lowers is  excellent  proof  and  illustration  of  his  accuracy  in  this 
assertion — there  is  an  inward  bitterness  towards  any  thought 
of  God  in  human  shape,  although  it  is  this  thought  only 
that  marks  Him  off  from  Nature.  Christians,  if  educated 
persons,  hate  to  think  thus  of  Him.  They  hate  to  think 
thus  of  Him,  because  they  think  of  Him  from  space,  and  not 


70 

spiritually  or  from  affection  ;  and  they  do  this  although  they 
might  know  that  great  love  and  vast  truth  are  not  spatially 
measurable,  and  although  they  might  know  that  Infinite  love 
and  Infinite  truth  are  still  less  spatially  measurable.  And 
because  they  regard  Him  from  space,  and  not  from  love  as 
toward  a  Man  who  is  our  Father,  they  think  that  He  would 
have  to  be  as  long  and  broad  and  big  as  the  Universe,  if  He 
were  to  have  a  human  figure ;  hence,  they  assign  to  Him 
substance  only,  and  deny  Him  a  Shape  of  His  substance ;  al- 
though they  know,  or  might  know,  that  substance  without 
shape  is  impossible;  and  although  they  know,  or  might 
know,  that  shape  is  not  unspiritual  except  when  it  is  mere 
dead  shape,  but  that  all  shape  is  spiritual  as  far  as  it  is  living 
and  changeable  according  to  the  movements  of  living  sub- 
stance governing  its  shape ;  and  although  they  know,  or 
might  know,  that  shape  is  so  far  spiritual  that,  unlike  any 
natural  thing,  it  is  quite  independent  of  space,  forasmuch  as  it 
is  all  the  same,  whether  presented  in  statuette  size  or  in 
heroic  size  (see  Div.  Love  and  Wis.,  n.  285 ;  Apoc.  Exp., 
1116,  continuation,  at  the  end ;  True  Chr.  Eel. ,  n.  64). 

Nevertheless,  the  very  "  stones,"  i.  e.,  those  natural  truths 
that  are  merely  sensuous,  will  and  must  "  cry  out "  and  de- 
clare these  verities,  if  the  higher  and  more  living  principles 
in  the  mind  shall  persist  in  holding  their  peace.  Must  cry 
out,  I  say ;  so  strong  is  the  downward  pressure  for  expres- 
sion from  the  world  of  truth  above  us.  Might  I  beseech  the 
readers  of  Swedenborg  to  listen  to  the  cry  of  these  mere 
stones'?  For  within  a  minute,  as  I  think,  through  these 
hard  facts  of  Matter  shall  more  New  Church  truth  be  heard 
and  understood  by  them  than  in  all  their  lives  before.  Will 
they  but  open  their  eyes,  they  shall  see  these  divine  truths 
carved  all  over  the  universe — truths  which  hitherto  they 
never  have  imagined. 


71 

THE  EVERLASTING   THEEE. 

To  the  Father,  Son  and  Holy  Spirit,  which  together  make 
up  the  Soul,  the  Body,  and  the  Effective  Power  of  Him  who 
rose  from  the  dead  with  flesh  and  bone,  and  was  touched  by 
Thomas,  and  is  still  and  ever  He  who  so  rose  and  was 
touched,  there  correspond  in  the  world  of  Matter  these 
three,  viz.,  the  Stuff  or  Substance,  the  Lay  the  Logos  or  Ar- 
rangement of  the  Stuff  or  Substance,  and  the  Strength  pro- 
ceeding from  the  union  of  the  Stuff  and  its  existing  Lay  or 
Arrangement.  In  other  words,  the  world  of  Matter  has 
these  three,  Substance,  Form  and  Force:  these  are  its 
three  hypostases  or  fundamentals,  and  without  each  and 
all  of  these  three  no  matter  can  for  an  instant  be.  That  the 
Form  is  the  Son  or  Offspring  of  Substance,  through  which 
Offspring  alone  can  Substance  show  or  manifest  itself,  will 
hardly  be  denied.  As  to  the  third  fundamental,  which  is 
Force  or  Strength,  its  procession  from  Substance  and  Form 
is  everywhere,  I  think,  admitted  by  scientific  men ;  for  from 
this  admission  comes  the  axiom  of  physics  that  Force  never 
exists  except  as  proceeding  from  Substance  whilst  Substance 
is  undergoing  a  change  of  Form.  But  this  axiom  is  usually 
made  to  relate  to  active  Force  only ;  and  before  the  corre- 
sponding spiritual  truth  can  be  seen  in  and  by  this  natural 
axiom,  it  is  necessary  to  take  from  out  of  an  active  sphere,  and 
put  into  a  motionless  sphere,  the  application  of  this  axiom;  for 
in  a  motionless  sphere  alone  can  it  be  examined  at  leisure  by 
the  rational  eye.  We  shall  be  taking  it  into  a  motionless 
sphere,  if  we  consider  well  those  conditions  which  are  found 
necessary  for  the  exhibition  of  passive  Force  or  Strength  in- 
stead of  active  Force  or  Strength.  This  we  shall  be  doing 
if  we  contemplate  that  which  is  called  the  "  strength  of  ma- 
terials," as,  for  instance,  the  strength  of  an  arch.  Examine 
an  arch.  Its  strength  is  measured  by  the  weight  it  will 
sustain  without  being  crushed  out  of  Form.  But  its 
strength  consists  in  the  maintenance  of  a  union  between 


72 

the  Substance  or  Stuff  in  the  arch,  on  the  one  hand,  and  the 
Form  (I  mean  that  exact  Form)  of  the  arch,  on  the  other 
hand.  As  long  as  the  Stuff  stays  in  that  precise  Form,  i.  e.} 
in  the  form  of  that  very  arch,  so  long  will  the  greatest  pos- 
sible opposing  force  be  unable  to  overcome  its  strength 
or  passive  force.  The  strength  of  the  arch  proceeds 
from  the  union  of  that  exact  Substance  and  that  exact  Form  ; 
and  the  overcoming  or  destruction  of  its  strength  will 
consist  in  crushing,  or  otherwise  crowding,  the  Stuff  out  oj 
that  Form  or  Shape.  This  formula  as  to  the  source  or  ori- 
gin of  Strength  corresponds  to  the  theological  formula 
whereby  the  Holy  Ghost  (which  is  the  Strength  or  power  Di- 
vine) is  represented  as  "proceeding  "  from  the  Father  and 
the  Son.  The  comparison  halts,  indeed;  because  the 
strength  of  materials  is  static,  whereas  the  Divine  Force, 
which  is  the  Holy  Ghost,  is  dynamic ;  of  course,  there  is  also 
a  further  difference  in  that  the  one,  even  were  it  active,  would 
still  be  a  dead  force,  while  the  other  is  a  spiritual  and  living 
force. 

FORCE  is  NOT  SUBSTANCE. 

It  is  easy  to  present  in  visible  and  dynamic  application 
the  same  general  truth  that  Force  proceeds  from  Substance 
and  Form,  and  is  what  comes  of  the  union  of  those  two. 
Let  me  give  a  simple  illustration,  the  simpler  the  better ; 
the  principles  that  govern  it  govern  also  the  working  of 
the  subtlest  forces  of  nature.  Take  a  small  rubber  band  ; 
twist  it  so  that  it  will  remain  for  a  moment  twisted  into  a 
a  sort  of  coil  or  ball.  Hold  this  coil  or  ball  in  the  closed 
fist  and  feel  it  there.  You  will  presently  feel  something 
else  than  a  mere  motionless  coil ;  you  will  feel  a  Force ;  it  is 
the  rubber  uncoiling  itself  within  your  hand ;  this  feeling  is 
not  the  same  sensation  as  the  sensation  of  the  motionless  coil 
of  rubber ;  this  Force  which  now  you  feel,  and  which  you 
did  not  feel  before  the  rubber  began  to  uncoil,  is  a  dynamic 


73 

force,  and  it  differs  from  what  you  felt  before  precisely  as 
any  dynamic  or  active  force  differs  from  every  static  or  pas- 
sive force ;  but  it  is  Force  all  the  same.  It  "  proceeds/'  if  I 
may  keep  the  theological  expression,  from  a  change  of  Form 
in  the  Stuff  of  the  rubber  band ;  the  form  of  the  band  was, 
before,  that  of  a  coil ;  now,  it  is  more  or  less  that  of  a  loop. 
Presently  you  will  wholly  cease  to  feel  that  Force ;  this  ces- 
sation will  take  place  when  there  is  no  longer  any  change  of 
Form  going  on  in  the  rubber.  But  when  you  shall  have 
ceased  to  feel  the  Force,  will  any  of  the  Substance  have  es- 
caped meanwhile  from  within  your  hand  1  No ;  the  same 
amount  of  substance  is  there  now  that  was  there  before. 
The  Force  is  all  gone ;  the  Substance,  however,  all  remains. 
If,  when  all  the  Force  has  gone  away,  all  Substance  remains 
behind,  it  must  be  that  Force  is  quite  other  than  Substance. 
Force  is  one  hypostasis,  Substance  is  quite  another  hypos- 
tasis.  But  you  will  never  find  any  Force  except  where  Sub- 
stance is,  and  you  will  never  find  it  except  with  both  Substance 
and  Form  behind  the  Force ;  passive  or  fixed  Force  you  will 
be  finding  if  the  Form  is  passive  or  fixed ;  and  active  or 
changing  Force  you  will  be  finding  if  the  Form  is  active,  i.  e.9 
if  the  Form  is  changing.  These  truths — I  have  expressed 
them  in  the  baldest  fashion — can  be  put  into  innumerable 
shapes,  and  be  put  to  innumerable  applications,  and  always 
they  will  agree  with  each  other  and  with  the  facts  of  science ; 
and  on  them,  as  on  a  mother's  bosom,  the  whole  material 
universe  rests  sweetly. 

The  pantheism  that  prevails,  not  in  Swedenborg,  indeed, 
but  in  many  of  Swedenborg's  supposed  adherents,  arises 
in  some  cases,  and  in  people  of  more  or  less  literary  turn  of 
mind,  from  a  non-perception  of  the  fundamental  natural 
truth  that  Force  is  quite  other  than  Substance.  Unlettered 
persons,  if  thoughtful,  understand  this  difference  instinct- 
ively, for  they  picture  things  to  themselves  when  they  think, 
instead  of  picturing  mere  words ;  and  if  any  one  picture 
things  instead  of  words,  his  thoughts  take  shape  by  the 


74 

same  laws  by  which  real  things  are  shaped,  and  thereby  his 
thoughts  are  true.  If  an  active  Force  which  is  Divine  is 
said  by  Swedenborg  to  be  acting  upon  a  creature,  Sweden- 
borg's  reader,  if  a  pantheist,  infers  at  once  that  Sweden- 
borg means  that  God  Himself  is  in  that  creature  ;  for  the 
pantheist  has  dissolved  into  a  shiny  fog  the  Trinity  ;  he 
does  not  see  that  Substance  and  Force  are  not  the  same,  and 
does  not  see  that  in  mere  Force  there  is  no  Substance  ;  and 
he  does  not  reflect  that  in  order  for  God  Himself  to  be  pre- 
sent in  any  being,  His  Substance  and  His  Form  as  well  as 
His  Force  must  be  present  in  that  being.  Moreover,  the 
pantheist  is  unable,  because  unwilling,  to  see  a  distinction 
between  (a)  the  Force  which  is  within  an  object  or  being, 
— within  God  for  example — and  which  constitutes  the  third 
of  the  three  elements  or  hypostases  necessary  to  His  being 
at  all ;  and  (b)  the  Force  which,  though  developed  through 
the  force  of  activity  within  an  Object  or  Being,  takes  effect 
not  within  that  Object  or  Being,  but  quite  outside  of  Jlim, 
and  is  not  by  any  possibility  to  be  found  within  Him,  but 
is  found  in  fact  active  in  only  something  else  than  that  Ob- 
ject or  Being,  viz.,  in  other  objects  or  beings — as  in  vege- 
tables, in  animals,  in  man,  for  example.  See  and  read  at- 
tentively the  True  Ghr.  JReL,  n.  46,  n.  43.  A  rational  man  can 
perceive  that  that  Force  in  a  man  which  proceeds  from  a 
change  of  form  in  the  substance  of  his  muscles  while  he  is 
at  work,  is  part  of  the  man,  and  is  he  himself — at  least  is  he 
as  to  his  body  ;  and  a  rational  man  can  perceive  that  that 
Force  which  is  exerted  by  him  outside  of  him,  upon  things 
which  are  not  he  but  which  he  only  fashions,  is  not  really 
he,  and  is  wholly  without  him  and  is  really  other  than  he. 
Yet  many  men  who  otherwise  are  rational  cannot  see  this 
truth  in  respect  to  God  ;  and  the  reason  is,  they  do  not 
form  an  outline  of  God,  but  they  merge  him  into  the  vague 
unseen  powers  of  natural  substance  or  of  spiritual  sub- 
stance. They  will  have  a  God  unapproachable  in  thought ; 
none  other  will  they  worship,  albeit  they  readily  worship 


75 

Swedenborg.  And  though  they  worship  Swedenborg,  they 
shut  their  eyes  to  his  teaching  in  respect  to  this  central 
doctrine  :  they  adore  Indefinition  :  they  will  have  no  God 
who  has  "  Lasts  "  as  well  as  "  Firsts/'  and  they  hate  that  of 
God  which  is  His  Last  and  Lowest.  Boundaries  and  Out- 
mosts  they  abominate  ;  in  God  they  abominate  these  as 
they  abominate  them  in  all  things  intellectual ;  they  will 
have  no  walls  or  ultimates,  no  five  gates  through  those  walls; 
they  make  direct  for  the  penetralia;  they  will  have  no  ob- 
servation by  the  five  wits,  no  Scientific  Fact,  no  Porter  to  open  ; 
no  thought  of  God  in  Man  Shape  ;  to  the  Father  they  wish 
to  climb  by  some  other  and  transcendental  way. 


THE  KEY. 

At  n.  391  of  the  Divine  Love  and  Wisdom,  and  elsewhere, 
Swedenborg  makes  clear  the  outline  which  distinguishes  be- 
tween the  Divine  and  the  non-Divine ;  and  the  essence  of  the 
clearness  with  which  he  puts  it,  lies  in  his  exhibiting  God 
in  the  human  shape  which  belongs  to  Him,  and  in  thus 
marking  Him  off  from  every  whit  of  His  creation.  There, 
at  n.  291,  and  at  no.  56,  a  child  can  clearly  distinguish  be- 
tween (a)  the  Divine  Force  which  is  within  the  Divine  Man 
(and  which,  with  the  Substance  in  Him,  and  the  Lay,  Lo- 
gos or  Arrangement  of  that  Substance  in  Him,  constitutes 
the  Trinity  or  Three-ness  in  Him),  and  (b)  the  Force  which 
is  not  within  the  Divine  man,  but  is  an  activity  around  and 
outside  o/Him  and  merely  is  derived  from  the  activity  which 
is  within  Him.  The  activity  which  is  outside  of  Hun  is  not 
an  essentially  Divine  Activity  ;  because,  in  order  for  it  to 
be  essentially  Divine  it  must  be  not  only  an  activity,  but  an 
activity  going  on  in  Divine  essential  Substance  :  it  must 
have  with  it  not  only  the  Force  Divine,  but  also  Substance 
Divine  and  Form  Divine.  But  the  substances  in  which  this 
Force  outside  of  the  Divine  Man  exists,  or  in  which  it  goes 


76 

on,  are  not  Divine  Substance  (for  Divine  Substance  is  only 
within  the  Divine  Man),  but  are  undivine  substances,  finite 
substances,  created  substances  ;  and  the  active  Force  exist- 
ing in  them  is  of  kind  such  as  they,  and  is  developed  by  their 
reaction  against  the  Divine  active  impulse  or  motus  vitae; 
nevertheless  this  active  force  in  them  is  steadily  dependent 
solely  upon  the  steadily-thrusting  and  essentially  Divine  Force 
existing  within  the  Divine  Man.  The  active  force  in  them  which 
is  thus  dependent  is  not  a  natural  force,  or  a  force  such  as  that 
which  we  find  in  natural  substances.  It  is  a  spiritual  force 
and  is  communicable  to  spiritual  substances  alone.  In  nat- 
ural substances,  these  having  been  fashioned  from  spiritual 
substances,  and  being  fixed  and  permanent  as  to  state,  the 
forces  are  fixed,  like  the  substances,  and  are  unalterable.  As 
to  the  spiritual  Force  which  exists  outside  of  the  Divine 
Man,  this  is  Divine  in  the  sense,  and  only  in  the  sense,  that 
to  God  (and  to  God  only)  its  activity  is  constantly  owing ;  and 
in  the  sense  that  thus,  by  reason  of  its  original  source  of 
derivation,  this  force  is  attributable  to  God,  and  is  able  to  be 
called  Divine ;  but  God's  Self  this  force  is  not ;  whereas,  on 
the  other  hand,  the  Activity  or  active  Force  within  the  Di- 
vine Man  is  essentially  God  and  is  absolutely  Divine  ;  for  it 
is  not  separated  from  Substance  Divine  and  Shape  Divine, 
but  is,  with  them,  the  third  of  those  three  fundamentals  or 
hypostases  that  make  up  God. 

Forasmuch  as  this  distinction  is  not  always  seen,  it  is 
thought  by  some  of  Swedenborg's  readers  that  the  Holy 
Spirit,  the  third  essential  element  of  God,  is  the  spiritual 
Sun,  and  by  others  of  them  it  is  thought  that  the  Holy  Spirit 
is  Heaven.  I  know  a  beloved  clergyman,  a  member  of  the 
"Convention,"  who  believes  this  last;  I  have  lately  spoken  with 
him.  He  believes  that  the  energy  of  the  spiritual  Sun  is  resi- 
dent within  that  Sun,  and  is  not  maintained  from  other 
source  than  that  Sun's  own  substance.  Whereas  the  truth 
is  wholly  opposite,  viz.,  that  the  third  element  of  God  is  in 
Him  and  is  not  outside  of  Him  ;  nevertheless,  His  sphere  of 


77 

operation  upon  beings  which  are  not  He,  is  still  rightly 
called  "the  operation  of  His  Holy  Spirit,  "white  yet  His  essen- 
tial Spirit,  or  the  element  which  maintains  His  essential 
Divine  Operation,  is  in  Himself  alone,  and  not  outside  Him- 
self. This  thing,  as  between  God  and  living  creatures,  is 
comparatively  as  it  is  between  an  engine  and  the  various  sets 
of  machinery  which  singly  or  simultaneously  it  is  used  to 
work  or  to  maintain  in  motion.  The  three  essentials  of  such 
an  engine,  which  are  (a)  its  substances,  (b)  the  form  or  ar- 
rangement of  its  substances,  and  (c)  the  activity  existing  in 
that  form,  are  all  within  the  engine ;  they  are  its  funda- 
mentals or  hypostases,  and  they  constitute  the  active  engine 
itself.  But  this  engine's  activity  may  be  exerted  at  hundreds 
of  yards  away,  or  even  at  miles  away.  By  virtue  of  reaction  in 
certain  media,  or  means  between,  it  can  be  exerted  thus  far 
away.  These  means  or  media  may  be  cranks,  may  be  cog- 
wheels, may  be  belting,  may  be  wire  for  transmitting  electric 
vibration,  etc.,  etc. ;  nevertheless,  the  engine  itself  is  not 
thereby  projected  to  a  distance  ;  still  less  does  the  engine 
become  thereby  the  sets  of  machinery  which  it  keeps  in  mo- 
tion ;  only  its  sphere  of  operation  is  projected  to  a  dis- 
tance. So,  and  not  otherwise,  with  God,  who  (though  of 
man-shape)  is  above  all  space  and  without  any  distance. 
The  three  essentials  of  His  very  being  (as  indeed  of  any 
being  or  object) — which  essentials  are  Substance,  Arrange- 
ment or  Logos  of  the  Substance  and  Strength  or  Working 
of  Substance  and  of  its  Arrangement — are  all  within  Him 
and  only  within  Him.  The  sphere  of  operative  power  out- 
side of  Him,  however — which  sphere  is  from  Him  indeed, 
yet  is  not  He,  but  is  His  effect  on  others — can  take  place 
only  in  others  than  He,  and  therefore  wholly  outside  of 
His  own  Divine  Body.  See  the  Divine  Love  and  Wisdom,  at 
n.  56 ;  also  the  Invitation  to  the  New  Church,  n.  11 ;  also  the 
True  Chr.  Eel,  n.  46,  n.  43,  n.  64 ;  also  the  Apocalypse  Ex- 
plained, n.  1219,  continuation  ;  also  On  the  Divine  Wisdom, 
xii,  3;  in  which  passages  it  can  be  seen  that  the  only  possible 


78 

presence  of  one  being  with  another  is  a  presence  not  of  sub- 
stance but  of  effective  operation ;  and  that  such,  and  such  only, 
is  the  Divine  Omnipresence.  As  for  spatial  presence,  this  is 
quite  impossible;  for  two  things  cannot  occupy  the  same  space 
at  the  same  time  ;  besides,  the  Divine  is  without  space  what, 
ever.  Moreover  those  on  whom  Love  Infinite  is  acting,  were 
they  at  bottom  (or  in  their  inmost  reality)  its  very  Self,  then 
were  Infinite  Love  a  Self -Love,  which  is  no  love  at  all. 
Were  they  not  inmostly  and  really  somewhat,  yet  inmostly 
other  than  He,  then  were  Infinite  Love  a  sham  love,  conceal- 
ing under  a  phantom  garb  of  altruism  an  all-swallowing 
selfishness  (see  Div.  Love  and  Wis.,  n.  47,  n.  49). 


THE  NATURE  OF   GOD'S  PRESENCE. 

"To  be  in  God,"  means  therefore  "to  be  in  the 
sphere  of  His  operative  power;"  and  it  means  no  more 
than  this.  In  this  sense  only  do  all  living  things 
live  in  God;  but  in  Himself  alone  can  any  of  His 
substance  be.  See  the  Div.  Love  and  Wis.,  n.  55,  where 
the  angels  are  said  to  declare  that  they  are  in  God  and  that 
God  is  in  them,  yet  naught  of  God  that  at  bottom  is  God ; 
where  also  it  is  said  that  the  universe  is  full  of  God  by 
virtue  of  its  being  an  image  of  God.  Now  we  know  that 
no  image  of  a  thing  is  the  real  thing  itself,  and  that  only 
the  form  and  not  the  substance  of  that  which  is  imaged  is 
in  an  image.  But  the  universe  is  substance;  hence 
its  substance  is  its  own  substance,  not  God's  sub- 
stance; and  its  image  is  God's,  not  from  itself.  It  is 
only  in  USES  that  He  is  present  (A.  E.,  n.  1226,  contin.  7) ; 
"  not  materially,  but  spiritually ;  for  He  is  in  Uses,  and  Uses 
regarded  in  themselves  are  immaterial,  but  the  necessary 
things  whereby  the  Uses  are  brought  to  pass  are  material " 
(Divine  Wisdom  III.,  2).  The  outer  operation  from  Him  is 
this  His  sphere  of  Use  ;  it  is  divine  and  yet  is  not  God  ;  just 


79 

as  the  beatings  or  pulses  on  the  shores  of  some  pond  at  whose 
middle  point  a  man  is  steadily  rocking  a  boat  from  side  to 
side,  may  be  said  to  be  "  human  "  operations,  and  yet  they 
are  not  the  man  himself  who  is  in  the  boat ;  this  man  him- 
self is  to  be  found  only  inside  of  his  cuticle.  Let  us  use 
language  and  not  abuse  it.  The  word  "  Divine "  means 
always  "  of  God."  Sometimes  that  which  is  said  to  be  "  of 
God "  is  still  in  Him,  and  is  essentially  Himself ;  and 
sometimes  that  which  is  "of  God  "  is  only  from  Him  and 
no  longer  in  Him,  and  thereby  is  essentially  other  than 
He.  At  n.  139  of  the  Heaven  and  Hell,  Swedenborg  lays 
down  clearly  the  distinction  between  his  doctrine  and  the 
doctrine  which  has  been  revived  by  some  of  his  pupils ; 
and  with  the  distinction  there  given  are  to  be  understood 
his  words  in  the  New  Church  Canons,  On  the  Holy  Spirit, 
at  Heads  First,  Second  and  Third.  Think  of  a  Man,  a  Man 
only,  in  human  shape,  all  personal  (Coronis,  n.  48)  ;  think 
of  the  three  things  in  every  man,  and  then  think  of  one  of 
these  things  (viz.,  his  effective  Force)  as  also  producing  an 
effect  beyond  and  around  him  ;  and  you  will  have  the  truth. 
Having  seen  that  the  Influx  of  Life  takes  place  "  not  by 
continuity  but  by  contiguity,"  that  is  to  say,  that  it  takes 
place  not  by  any  such  process  as  the  "continuing "  of  sub- 
stance from  the  Life-giver  into  that  to  which  life  is  given, 
but  that  it  takes  place  by  contiguity  between  the  successive 
particles  of  the  intervening  medium  and  by  virtue  of  action 
upon  those  particles,  and  by  virtue  of  transfer  of  action  from 
one  particle  to  the  next,  and  by  virtue  of  the  reaction  of  each 
particle  in  succession,  whereby  each  particle  as  it  reacts 
against  action,  carries  on  and  transfers  to  its  neighbor  par- 
ticle the  action  impressed  upon  it ;  having  seen  these  things 
in  a  general  way,  it  only  remains  that  we  see  them  in  their 
three-fold  order,  and  see  the  discrete  or  separate  degrees  in 
which  they  lie,  and  the  successive  order  in  which  those  de- 
grees exist  as  long  as  they  are  in  process  of  being  brought 
about ;  and  that  we  also  see  them  in  the  discrete  or  separate 


80 

degrees  of  simultaneous  order  in  which  they  exist  after  being 
brought  about,  i.  e.,  as  beheld  in  the  living  creation  to  which 
Life  is  thus  supplied. 


THE  HYPOSTASES  OF  MOTION. 

Communicated  life  not  being  a  communicated  substance, 
and  being  no  substance  whatever,  but  only  communicated 
Impulse,  Motion  or  Activity,  it  is  necessary  first  of  all  to 
observe,  in  this  Impulse,  this  Motion  or  this  Activity,  the 
three  Essentials  or  Hypostases  without  which  nothing  can 
be,  and  of  which  Essentials  the  Impulse,  Motion  or  Activity 
consists.  And  this  cannot  be  done  by  abstract  reasoning  ; 
for  such  reasoning  looks  wise  and  may  look  pious,  but  it  is 
mere  talk.  This  can  be  done  however  in  the  concrete,  and 
thus  most  swiftly  and  thoroughly ;  that  is  to  say,  can  be 
done  by  the  examination  of  visible  facts  in  which  these 
things  are  to  be  found.  They  are  to  be  found  in  the  phe- 
nomena of  Sound  and  Light,  which  phenomena  Swedenborg 
teaches  the  influx  of  Life  resembles  with  absolute  precision 
(Apoc.  Exp.,  n.  1122,  cont. ;  n.  1134,  cont.).  To  those  phe- 
nomena let  us  therefore  look ;  and,  first,  to  the  phenomena 
of  Sound ;  because  the  phenomena  of  Sound  have  long  been 
pretty  well  known,  whereas  those  of  Light  have  but  latterly 
become  known  and  only  to  the  scientific  world,  and,  in  the 
minds  of  Swedenborg's  expounders  hitherto,  appear  to  be 
involved  in  most  wretched  misconceptions — misconceptions 
which  Swedenborg  himself  flung  wholly  away. 

Life,  says  Swedenborg  (Apoc.  Exp.,  n.  1122 ;  True  Chr. 
Bel.,  n.  30),  enters  the  subject  to  which  it  is  communicated 
in  no  other  wise  than  as  sound  enters  the  ear.  Let  us  see, 
then,  how  sound  enters  the  ear.  Not  as  a  substance,  but  as 
an  agitation  of  substances,  does  it  enter.  When  a  woman 
plays  the  harp,  her  finger-tips  budge  the  strings  out  of  a 
straight  line;  each  string  thus  budged  flies  back  to  a 


81 

straight  line  again,  and  flies  on  beyond  the  straight  line,  and 
bucks  or  bends  itself  the  other  way  nearly  as  much  as  it  first 
was  budged  one  way.  Then  back  it  bucks  again; 
and  thus  it  keeps  on  bucking  back  and  forward; 
and  all  this  while  it  is  agitating  the  air,  and  thus  it 
maintains  in  the  air  an  agitation  like  its  own ;  and  the  agi- 
tation is  propagated  through  the  air,  and  the  trembling  air 
communicates  its  agitation  to  the  ear-drum,  so  that  in  the 
ear-drum  there  is  reproduced  an  agitation  similar  to  that 
which  the  harp-string  is  suffering ;  and  the  sensorium  senses 
this  reproduction ;  and  this  reproduction,  when  sensed,  is 
Sound.  That  is  why  Swedenborg  says  that  reproduced 
Life  is  just  like  the  reproduced  ear- vibration  called  Sound. 
For  just  as  the  agitation  in  the  harp  is  the  source  and  foun- 
tain of  the  agitation  in  the  ear,  and  steadily  maintains  the 
agitation  in  the  ear,  so  (Div.  Love  and  Wis.,  n.  291)  is  the 
self -springing  Motion  in  God  the  source  and  steady  fountain 
of  the  life  of  all  living  creatures.  Now,  dear  sir,  I  shall  not 
argue  this  with  you :  you  can  either  see  this  or  not  see  it ; 
and  you  yourself  must  judge  whether  I  speak  ill  or  well  in 
saying  what  I  have  said.  I  only  rehearse  the  general  pro- 
cess of  sound-making  in  order  to  lay  a  foundation  for  setting 
out  the  details  of  it,  and  for  calling  your  attention  to  the 
trinal  degrees  in  it,  and  the  manner  of  their  formation  ; 
which  manner  is  by  composition  of  course,  and  takes  place 
according  to  the  same  process  which  we  observed  in  the 
making  of  a  rope. 

And,  first,  see  that  there  are  three  degrees.  Motion  is  of 
Force ;  and  though  Force  is  neither  Substance  nor  Shape, 
but  is  the  third  to  those  two,  it  still  has  three  elements  which 
correspond  to  those  three  fundamentals.  It  has  (1)  what  is 
substantial ;  it  has  (2)  what  is  formal ;  it  has  (3)  what  is 
effective.  The  substantial  of  Force  is  its  Essence  or  JEsse  ; 
the  formal  of  Force  is  its  mode,  its  manifestation,  its  Exist- 
ere ;  and  the  effective  of  Force  is  its  Kesult  or  Operari. 
The  formal  of  it  is  made  up  by  composition  from  its  sub- 


82 

stantial,  just  as  a  rope-yarn  is  made  up  by  composition  from 
the  fibres.  I  am  well  aware  that  to  the  present  class  of 
Swedenborg's  readers  these  words  will  for  the  most  part  be 
mere  words ;  let  me,  therefore,  swiftly  make  them  other  than 
mere  words,  by  turning  them  into  things. 

The  substantial,  or  if  you  like,  the  substance,  of  the  harp- 
sound,  is  clearly  the  Agitation.  Not  the  agitation  on  this 
string  rather  that  on  that ;  not  this  kind  of  agitation  rather 
than  that  kind  of  agitation,  even  on  the  same  string.  Not 
the  manner  in  which  the  strings  are  agitated  when  one  air  is 
played,  or  the  manner  in  which  they  are  agitated  when  an- 
other air  is  played.  But  agitation  itself;  agitation  merely , 
agitation  any  how,  anywhere  and  any  when.  Agitation  is 
the  primary  and  essential  out  of  which  all  airs  are  builded. 

But  mere  agitation  does  not  make  music.  We  must  sort 
the  agitations  and  must  bundle  them  together,  as  we  bundle 
the  fibres  into  rope-yarns.  Sound-waves  of  regular  length, 
enough  of  such  waves  to  last  long  enough  to  be  recognized  by 
the  ear,  when  we  shall  have  bundled  them  together  as  we  bun- 
dled the  fibres  into  rope-yarns,  make  a  note  of  pitch  distinct.  It 
may  be  a  note  of  full  length,  or  it  may  be  only  a  hemi-demi- 
semi-quaver ;  but  it  is  a  note,  a  unity,  a  thing  distinct.  It  takes 
a  good  many  waves  to  make  such  a  unity,  just  as  it  took  a  good 
many  fibres  to  a  rope-yarn  ;  but  whenever  it  is  fairly  made 
it  is  a  unity,  although  it  be  only  one  sixty-fourth  as  long  as  a 
full  note.  Again,  we  can  put  some  of  these  unities  together 
and  make  one  fresh  unity  of  them  ;  just  as  out  of  a  number 
of  rope-yarns  we  made  a  strand.  There  are  several  ways  of 
doing  this  ;  one  very  simple  way  is  by  a  slur,  which  slur  is  a 
binding  of  two  different  notes  into  one  syllable ;  a  slur  is 
perfectly  a  unity.  Other  and  constantly  recurring  ways  of 
making  distinct  formations,  are  by  combining  notes  into  bars, 
combining  bars  again  into  sections,  etc.,  etc.;  these  ways  are 
like  combining  strands  into  a  rope  and  like  combining  ropes 
into  a  cable.  Now  all  that  differentiates  a  cable  from  a 
sufficiently  numerous  but  indiscriminate  lot  of  fibres  ;  and  all 


83 

that  differentiates  a  musical  air  from  a  sufficient  but  indis- 
criminate lot  of  sound-waves,  is  Arrangement  or  Lay — of  the 
fibres  in  the  case  of  the  rope,  and  of  the  primal  agitations  in 
the  case  of  the  air.  Arrangement  then,  or  Lay  (what  in 
that  other  dialect  of  our  Aryan  tongue  called  Greek  was 
known  as  Logos)  is  the  second  degree  of  composition,  and 
without  it  there  can  be  no  rope  creation,  no  musical  creation. 

But  Arrangement  or  Lay  has  in  itself  no  substance.  The 
score  in  music  is  not  an  air,  nor  is  the  theory  of  rope-making 
a  rope.  Take  away  the  first  degree  of  composition  from  the 
second  degree  of  composition,  and  you  have,  in  music,  merely 
the  score  ;  and  in  rope-making,  you  have  only  the  way  in  which 
rope  should  be  made.  To  make  either  the  first  or  the  second 
degree  complete,  you  must  bind  these  two  together  and  form 
thereby  a  third  degree ;  which  third  degree  is,  in  music,  the 
air  itself  when  sung  or  played ;  and,  in  rope-making,  the  rope 
itself  when  made.  There,  in  the  actual  air  itself  when 
played  or  sung,  and  in  the  actual  rope  itself  all  tangible,  you 
have  the  primal  agitations,  you  have  the  primary  fibres ;  not 
one  of  them  is  missing ;  these  primal  agitations,  these  pri- 
mary filaments,  constitute  the  first  or  Esse  degree  of  dis- 
crete order. 

You  have  there  also  the  score  of  the  air,  which  is  the  plan 
whereby  its  filaments  or  fibres  (as  it  were)  are  to  be  composed 
into  notes  of  various  numbers  of  vibrations,  and  of  various 
rapidities  of  vibration ;  and  whereby  the  notes  thus  composed 
are  to  be  recomposed  into  bars,  and  again  into  sections,  and 
so  on.  This  stage  of  music-creation  exhibits  the  second  or 
formal  degree  of  discrete  order. 

Lastly  you  have  a  third  degree  composed  of  the  union  of 
those  two  prior  degrees,  viz.,  (1)  the  vibrations ;  (2)  their 
scheme  of  arrangement ;  (3)  the  vibrations  when  actually  ar- 
ranged according  to  that  scheme :  the  actual  arrangement 
and  real  production  is  the  air  itself,  just  as  it  was  the  rope 
itself.  Eegard  them  in  the  course  of  manufacture,  and  you 
have  the  three  degrees  in  successive  order.  Eegard  them 


84 

in  the  rope  when  really  manufactured  and  grasped  in  the 
hand,  or  in  the  air  when  really  heard  by  the  ear,  and  you 
have  all  three  degrees  together,  in  what  is  called  simultaneous 
order.  The  rope  and  the  air  were  produced  by  degrees  of 
successive  order;  they  exist,  however,  after  production,  in 
degrees  of  simultaneous  order. 

But  take  note  that  in  order  for  these  three  degrees  to  be 
simultaneous  degrees  in  real  existence,  and  in  order  to  pre- 
sent an  analogy  or  correspondence  to  the  influx  of  Life,  which 
Swedenborg  says  they  do  present,  they  must  be  in  the  ear 
itself,  and  not  outside  of  it ;  they  must  be  agitations  of  sub- 
stance in  the  ear  and  belonging  to  the  ear,  to  wit,  in  the  ear- 
drum and  thence  in  the  sensorium.  And  (1)  the  agitation  in 
general  must  be  there ;  (2)  the  modes  of  arrangement  of  the 
Agitation  must  be  there ;  and  (3)  the  Agitation  must  really 
have  taken  effect,  or  have  come  into  Operari.  In  the  very 
substance  there  the  Agitation  must  have  come  into  Operari ; 
and  have  (1)  come  about  there,  (2)  through,  according  to,  or  by 
means  of,  the  Arrangement  or  Lay  of  (3)  the  various  actual 
assembled  agitations. 


GAUGE  THE  THEORIES. 

Now  you  see  that,  contrary  to  your  theory,  the  source  or 
fountain  of  Activity,  namely  the  harp,  has  not  transferred  it- 
self into  the  ear,  and  has  not  transferred  anything  into  the 
ear,  but  has  been  causing  a  mere  reproduced  Activity  in  the 
ear.  The  ear  must  have  been  made  already  before  the  harp 
could  play  upon  it ;  and  the  play  of  the  harp  does  not  make 
the  ear,  but  plays  upon  the  ear.  The  Divine  Harper,  however, 
both  has  made  all  living  things  on  which  He  plays,  and  also 
He  steadily  makes  them  hear,  that  is,  steadily  makes  them 
live ;  but  He  has  to  make  their  substance  before  He  can 
make  them  hear  or  live.  And  He  cannot  make  anything  hear, 
that  is,  live,  except  He  first  organize  it  so  that  it  will  answer 


85 

to  the  pulsations  of  the  spiritual  atmosphere  which  brings 
Life  from  Him.  Only  spiritual  substance  can  answer  to  the 
vibrations  or  life-beat  of  the  spiritual  atmosphere.  Now 
spirits  are  of  that  spiritual  substance  which  solely  answers  to 
that  life-beat ;  men  are  spirits  with  an  added  accretion  from 
material  substance ;  animals  have  also  (besides  material  sub- 
stance) certain  spiritual  substances,  though  of  lower  degree 
than  have  men ;  and  so  do  vegetables  have  some  spiritual 
substances  present  with  them,  though  of  degree  still  lower ; 
hence  all  these  live — if  vegetables  can  be  said  to  live— and 
are  subjects  of  spiritual  influx ;  i.  e.,  of  spiritual  motion.  But 
the  mineral  kingdom  has  no  spiritual  substances  in  it,  that 
is,  none  united  to  it ;  but  themineral  kingdom  exists  by  vir- 
tue of  this,  viz.,  that  spiritual  substances  were,  at  creation, 
clotted  or  bundled  together  to  make  natural  substance,  and 
their  very  bundling  together  deprived  them  of  the  nature  of 
spiritual  substance,  and  did,  per  sey  fashion  and  convert 
them  into  material  substance ;  which  material  substance 
is  not  able  to  be  affected  by  the  agitation  going  on  in  the 
spiritual  sun,  but  only  by  the  agitation  going  on  in  that  sun's 
substitute  in  the  material  world,  viz.,  the  visible  solar  body, 
or  by  material  agitation  of  similar  calorific  kind,  which  may 
be  artificial  in  its  origin. 

THE  HYPOSTASES  OF   LIGHT. 

Whatever  I  have  said  of  sound  may  be  said  of  Light 
(meaning  by  Light,  also  Heat  and  Actinism) ;  only  Light  is 
the  tremor  of  a  still  finer  and  more  impressible  atmosphere 
than  air.  And  what  can  be  said  of  Heat,  Light  and 
Actinism,  can  be  said  of  that  Influx  of  Life  which  is  Love, 
Enlightenment,  and  Activity  derived  from  Love  and  En- 
lightenment. In  that  Influx,  Love  or  Wish  is  the  essential 
Activity  or  actuating  power  ;  it  is  simply  and  barely  actua- 
tion or  agitation,  just  as  Heat  is  essentially  actuation  or 
agitation  ;  or  just  as  the  primitive  elements  of  sound  are 


86 

essentially  mere  actuations  or  agitations.  The  second  de- 
gree, whether  of  Love  or  of  Heat,  is  Intelligence  or  Light ; 
this  degree  is  the  form  or  arrangement  of  the  Substantial  or 
of  the  first  degree,  just  as  the  music-score  is  the  form  or 
arrangement  of  the  actuations  or  agitations  of  the  sound- 
waves. Who  does  not  see  that  Love  or  Wish  is  the  very 
constituent  fibre  and  filament  which  infills  every  thought, 
and  without  which  no  thought  could  exist,  any  more  than 
thought  could  exist  without  tremors  and  movements  in 
brain-atoms,  or  than  tunes  could  exist  without  some  agitations 
in  the  ear  ?  The  actual  combination  of  these  two  degrees, 
if  the  subject-matter  is  one  of  Physics,  is  Actinism  ;  if  it  is 
moral,  this  combination  is  moral  Actinism,  or  what  is  known 
as  Conduct. 

But  this  particular  nomenclature  of  physical  ethereal 
agitation  is  as  yet  philosophical  only  ;  it  has  not  yet  become 
also  scientific.  TJae  names  Heat,  Light  and  Actinism  as 
now  in  use  are  distributed  among  sundry  effects  merely,  and 
are  so  distributed  for  the  sake  of  practical  convenience,  and 
not  of  philosophic  order.  For  example,  it  is  convenient  to 
have  the  term  Actinism  to  denote  a  particular  effect  of  the 
ethereal  vibration,  viz.,  the  shaking  apart  of  a  bundle  of  so- 
called  atoms  ;  let  us  respect  this  nomenclature.  It  still 
stays  true  that  the  imparting  of  vibration  to  such  bundle, 
without  actually  shaking  it  to  pieces,  equally  constitutes 
what  we  call  an  effect  of  ethereal  vibration.  The  two  kinds 
of  effect  are  indeed  different,  but  this  does  not  arise  from  an 
essential  difference  in  the  ethereal  vibration  in  those  two 
cases  respectively ;  just  as  the  operation  of  the  voice  when  a 
man  so  sings  as  to  shatter  a  very  thin  wineglass,  is  not 
essentially  different  from  its  operation  when  he  so  sings  as 
merely  to  cause  the  glass  to  take  up  a  synchronous,  sympa- 
thetic and  audible  vibration.  So  with  respect  to  the  applica- 
tion of  the  terms  Heat  and  Light  ;  these  names  were 
originally  applied  on  considering  observed  effects,  and  were 
not  selected  on  a  thorough  knowledge  of  causes  ;  nor  do 


87 

their  present  significations  answer  strictly  to  a  sorting  of 
their  causes.  These  names  are  well  assigned  for  practical 
uses,  but  not  for  philosophical  arrangement,  but  philoso- 
phic is  Swedenborg's  terminology  where  (Apoc.  Exp.,  n. 
1206,  cont.),  he  points  out  Heat  as  that  which  agitates ;  and 
points  out  Light  as  that  which  gives  modus,  measure,  form 
or  fashion  to  the  agitation — a  modus  a  measure  a  form  or 
a  fashion  which  varies  according  to  the  inborn  construction 
of  that  which  is  agitated.  Thus  Heat,  when  parted  from 
Light,  may  be  compared  to  mere  Noise,  for  Noise  lacks 
modus,  or  established  measure  (or  measures)  of  beat,  in  its 
little  waves;  it  is  a  mere  stir,  in  whose  movement  no  apparent 
order  has  been  established  ;  but  Light  is  order  and  arrange- 
ment, and  is  comparable  to  a  clear  tone,  a  pure  Klangfarbe 
as  distinguished  from  Noise  confused  ;  yet  stir,  or  actuation, 
be  it  remembered,  is  still  the  essential  or  Esse  both  of  Light 
and  Tone ;  and  Light  and  Tone  are  the  regulated  forth-body- 
ing or  existere  of  the  substantial  esse.  This  Esse  and  this 
Existere  are  not  two,  but  one,  yet  without  merging 
(Div.  Love  and  Wis.,  n.  14)  ;  they  cannot  be  really 
parted.  If  they  seem  ever  to  have  parted  company, 
this  seeming  comes  only  from  the  feebleness  of  our 
senses  ;  for  Substance  (here  Agitation)  and  Form  (here 
Mode  of  Agitation)  cannot  be  parted,  although  Forms  or 
Modes  may  become  so  complicated  as  to  be  untraceable  and 
be  thought  to  have  turned  to  nothingness. 

As  between  Love,  which  is  the  stir  of  spiritual  substance, 
and  Wisdom,  which  is  the  modus,  the  form,  or  the  arrange- 
ment of  that  stir,  all  things  are  true  which  are  true  between 
Heat  and  Light,  when  Heat  and  Light  are  considered 
philosophically  or  according  to  a  knowledge  of  causes.  And 
between  Love  and  Wisdom  all  things  are  true  which  are 
true  as  between  the  mere  unordered  agitation  of  sound- 
waves, and  that  ordering  and  arrangement  of  them  which  is 
Tune  and  Music.  It  is  a  general  law  in  dynamics, 
corresponding  to  the  law  I  have  mentioned  in  statics, 


that  the  composition  and  putting  together  of  stirs 
or  actuations,  makes  up  the  second  or  middle  discrete 
stage  of  formation,  and  that  this  stage,  just  as  in  statics,  is 
effected  by  an  orderly  putting  together  of  what  I  may  be 
supposed  to  call  filaments  of  agitation,  in  the  same  manner 
as  (through  the  putting  together  of  filaments)  we  have  seen 
a  rope  is  made.  This  is  equally  true  in  ethereal  and 
atmospheric  vibration,  and  in  the  constitution  or  putting 
together  of  Life  itself.  But  since  I  am  not  learned  in  any 
of  these  matters,  it  behooves  me  to  come  quickly  to  an  end. 
Nor  would  I  have  said  anything  whatever  about  these 
matters,  if  some  other  would  have  shown  a  mind  to  speak. 
May  the  stage  of  pious  unintelligence  and  pious  impercep- 
tion  which  has  hitherto  characterized  the  Swedenborgian 
following  (of  which  imperception  and  unintelligence  I 
accuse  myself  as  heartily  as  I  accuse  others)  come  soon  to  its 
due  end  ;  and  may  a  stage  of  consideration  of  FACTS  begin. 
For  Facts  are  that  "  lowest  room ''  at  the  feast  of  wisdom, 
which  must  be  first  occupied  by  every  man,  ere  he  can  by 
any  means  be  invited  up  higher  or  let  partake  of  choice 
viands  at  the  upper  tables. 


A  PASSAGE  IN  THE  "  DIVINE  LOVE  AND  WISDOM." 

Those  who,  with  you,  believe  that  the  inmost  of  matter  is 
Divine,  and  that  the  inmost  activity  of  Nature  is  really  God, 
have  been  wont  to  rely  on  n.  157  of  the  Divine  Love  and 
Wisdom,  which  they  think  teaches  that  the  reality  of  ma- 
terial substance  would  become  nothingness  were  it  not 
maintained  by  influx  from  the  spiritual  world.  The  wretched 
translations  of  this  passage,  indeed,  teach  by  inference  such 
an  absurd  and  monstrous  doctrine;  but  Swedenborg's 
Latin  has  an  altogether  other  meaning,  and  relates  to  an 
absolutely  other  subject.  On  inspection  this  will  be  evident 
to  any  mere  Latin  scholar,  I  think ;  but  if  not  evident  to  a 


89 

mere  Latin  scholar,  then  to  any  person  who  weighs  the 
contents  of  that  number  and  of  the  next  following  number, 
and  considers  the  subject  matter,  which  subject  matter  is 
the  fact  of  vegetable  growth  as  achieved  through  the  com- 
bined effects  of  the  sun  of  the  natural  world  and  the  sun  of 
the  spiritual  world.  Keferring  to  this  growth,  which  is  a 
perpetual  creation  of  the  individuals  belonging  to  the  plant 
kingdom,  Swedenborg  says  (Div.  Prov.,  n.  3)  that  the  char- 
acteristics of  growth  and  prolification  in  the  vegetable  world 
spring  neither  from  anything  in  the  seed  nor  from  any- 
thing in  the  sun  of  this  world,  which  sun  he  says  is  mere 
fire,  "  but  is  in  the  seed  from  God  Creative,  whose  wisdom 
is  infinite  ;  and  that  it  not  only  was  in  the  seed  from  God 
Creative  when  it  was  created,  but  also  is  steadily  in  it  from 
Him  afterward ;  for  SUSTENTATION  is  PERPETUAL  CREATION  like 
as  subsistence  is  perpetual  existence." 

From  this  passage,  as  from  many  others,  can  be  seen  what 
is  the  " perpetual  creation"  which  those  gentlemen  who  are 
of  your  opinion  have  supposed  to  be  a  perpetual  creation  of 
matter,  but  which  in  fact  is  only  a  perpetual  creation  of 
living  forms.  For  the  creation  and  sustentation  of  such 
forms,  both  spiritual  and  natural,  was  the  cause,  and  is  the 
whole  drift  and  purpose  of  creation  ;  and  you  prostitute 
Swedenborg's  conception  of  such  perpetual  creation  if  you 
divert  it  from  the  world  of  life  and  apply  it  to  the  atoms  of 
lifeless  substance.  Lifeless  substance  he  disregards;  'tis 
not  concerning  this  that  he  was  sent  to  teach ;  therefore  he 
leaves  it  out  of  sight,  save  in  those  passages  in  which  he 
expressly  and  explicitly  declares  how  and  whence  it  ob- 
tained its  creation,  viz.,  that  it  was  created  by  successive 
compositions  and  recompositions  of  substances  that  had 
been  thrown  off  from  a  sphere  of  dead  substance  which  had 
been  made  to  encompass  the  Man-God,  and  which  is  called 
the  spiritual  Sun.  Except  in  such  passages,  I  say,  as  treat 
expressly  of  its  origin,  he  leaves  matter  and  indeed  all 
created  substance  (as  mere  substance)  completely  out  of 


90 

sight ;  and  he  busies  himself  with  the  organized  and  living 
forms  into  which  certain  portions  of  this  substance  have 
been  built,  being  forms  which  have  been  created  from  age  to 
age  and  from  year  to  year,  and  been  from  moment  to 
moment  sustained  in  perpetual  creation  or  recreation  of 
their  forms,  but  not  by  recreation  of  the  substance  which 
makes  up  their  forms.  Mere  substance  as  such,  I  say,  he 
seldom  treats  of ;  and  mostly,  I  say,  he  leaves  it  out  of  con- 
sideration ;  holding  it  of  no  importance  to  consider,  save  to 
declare  that  God  created  it,  and  to  declare  how  He  created 
it.  Therefore  in  the  treatise  "  On  the  Divine  Love  "  (VULL), 
he  tosses  matter  aside,  and  treats  of  living  things  as  exhaust- 
ing the  whole  field  of  view,  and  calls  living  things  "  all 
things  in  the  world."  "By  all  things  in  the  world, "he 
says,  "by  omnia  mundi,we  mean  living  things,  as  well  as  those 
that  walk  and  creep  on  the  earth,  as  those  that  fly  in  the 
heavens,  and  that  swim  in  the  waters ;  and  we  mean  also 
the  subjects  of  the  vegetable  kingdom,  whether  trees,  shrubs, 
flowers,  shoots  or  grasses ;  but  as  for  the  atmosphere,  but 
as  for  the  waters,  but  as  for  the  matters  in  the  earth,  these 
three  are  nothing  more  than  the  means  for  the  generation  and 
production  of  those  others  " — to  wit,  of  those  living  things 
which  he  calls  "  every  thing  in  the  world."  In  interpreting 
Swedenborg,  however,  the  gentlemen  who  think  with  you 
have  mainly  and,  in  one  sense,  exclusively,  applied  his  ob- 
servations with  the  opposite  effect,  and  have  represented 
him  as  referring  to  dead  and  inconsequential  substances, 
instead  of  living  forms  built  up  out  of  those  substances, 
in  the  passages  where  he  speaks  of  "  all  things  "  and  where 
he  says  that  "  all  things  "  would  perish  were  it  not  for  con- 
stant influx,  and  in  passages  where,  using  the  word  "  noth- 
ing," he  says  that  "  nothing  "  could  exist  without  that  con- 
stant influx. 


91 
THE  MEANING  OF  "  PERPETUAL  CREATION." 

At  n.  3  of  the  Divine  Providence,  just  cited,  if  you  will 
read  the  context,  appears  most  clearly  what  the  author  re- 
fers to,  in  declaring  that  "  sustentation  is  perpetual  cre- 
ation, like  as  subsistence  is  perpetual  existence/'  viz.,  the 
living  vegetable  and  animal  kingdoms.  But  since  a  single 
passage,  however  conclusive  for  some,  may  not  conclude  for 
others  the  true  mean  ing  of  subsistence  as  being  perpetual 
existence  in  conservation,  examine,  I  beseech  you,  n.  222  of 
the  Conjugial  Love.  Without  the  marriage  of  the  Good 
and  the  True,  he  there  says,  nothing  would  subsist  that  ever 
was  brought  into  existence  (nihil  subsisteret  quod  exstitit). 
In  what  now,  and  how  now,  will  this  subsistence  which  is 
necessary  to  continued  existence  be  achieved  ?  Is  it  to  take 
place  in  dead  matter,  and  is  it  to  consist  in  an  influx  which 
each  moment  would  sustain  each  atom  of  substance  and  pre- 
vent it  from  turning  into  nothingness  *  Swedenborg  goes 
on  there  to  describe  in  what  this  continued  subsistence  takes 
place,  and  how  it  is  brought  about.  There,  if  anywhere,  he 
must  introduce  your  process. 


WHAT  THE  SPHERE  OF  "  CONSERVATION  "  is. 

Instead  of  doing  this,  he  shows  a  very  different  process, 
and  he  confines  it  to  quite  other  matters.  He  says  there  is 
a  sphere  of  conserving  the  created  universe,  and  that  this 
sphere  proceeds  from  the  Lord ;  and  he  says  that  it  is  the 
UNIVERSAL  of  all  spheres  proceeding  from  the  Lord,  and  that 
the  conjugial  sphere  is  supereminently  the  sphere  of  conserv- 
ing the  created  universe ;  and  he  says  that  the  reason  why  the 
conjugial  sphere  is  the  universal  sphere  of  all  spheres  proceed- 
ing from  the  Lord,  is  that  the  conjugial  sphere  is  the 
sphere  of  propagation;  and  he  says  that  the  means  whereby 
this  sphere  is  supereminently  the  sphere  of  conservation  of 


92 

the  Universe,  is  that  it  conserves  the  universe  by  successive 
generations.  Now  if  there  were  such  a  sphere  needful  as 
you  believe  in,  to  wit,  a  sphere  that  continually  issuing  forth 
from  God,  shall  first  make  Nothing  into  All  Things,  and 
then  forever  steadily  keep  All  Things  from  lapsing  back  into 
Nothing,  do  you  not  think  that  such  a  sphere  must  be  even 
more  "  supereminent "  than  the  sphere  of  conjugial  love, 
which  only  effects  the  preservation  of  the  live  creation  1 
Would  not  Swedenborg  at  least  have  put  it  into  the  list  of 
spheres  which  here  he  gives  us  ?  Moreover  he  declares  the 
conjugial  sphere  to  be  the  universal  of  all  the  spheres  proceed- 
ing from  God.  If  among  the  proceeding  spheres  there  be 
such  a  sphere  as  you  conceive,  even  did  Swedenborg  here  for- 
get to  mention  it,  it  must  follow  that  since  the  conjugial  or 
propagative  sphere  is  the  universal  of  all  spheres,  it  is  the 
universal  of  your  sphere  of  producing  Something  out  of 
Nothing  and  of  preserving  each  substance  from  relapsing 
into  nothingness.  The  universal  and  essential  principle  in 
your  sphere,  then,  must  be  that  conjugial  propagative  prin- 
ciple which  pervades  all  spheres ;  and  it  will  follow,  not  only 
that  each  bit  of  rock  is  kept  from  turning  into  nothingness 
by  the  influx  of  your  sphere,  but  also  that  the  influx  of  your 
sphere  produces  this  result  in  a  conjugial  and  propagative 
manner,  i.  e.,  that  bits  of  rock  breed  and  beget  young  rocks ; 
and  beget,  not  by  formation  of  young  rock  out  of  the  sub- 
stance of  parent  rock,  but  by  a  fresh  creation  of  young  rocks 
out  of  substance  freshly  put  forth  by  your  sphere  of  reality 
proceeding  out  of  God.  And  something  to  this  effect  indeed 
you  may  quote  from  Swedenborg,  if  you  interpret  him  as 
you  will.  "  Nothing  (nihil)  in  Nature,"  he  says,  "  exists 
save  from  a  seed,  or  grows  save  by  virtue  of  warmth."  (On 
the  Divine  Wisdom,  in,  n.  2).  This  would  show  that  rocks 
spring  from  seed,  and  that  they  grow  by  means  of  sunshine! 
Dear  Sir,  I  beseech  you,  lift  your  eyes  to  the  world  of  life 
and  spirit,  when  Swedenborg  speaks  of  what  is  living  and 
thereby  spiritual.  And  when  he  speaks  of  matters  scien- 


93 

tific,  of  matters  not  involving  vitality,  study  well  those  scien- 
tific matters  and  master  the  sciences  therewith  concerned ; 
else  you  cannot  even  know  what  his  topic  is,  and  must 
surely  confuse  the  sky  and  the  earth  into  a  mental  chaos. 
Eegard  the  context,  when  he  uses  the  words  "  omnia"  and 
"  nihil "  /  and  do  not  degrade  to  an  interpretation  death- 
ward  the  asseverations  he  brings  us  hither  from  the  world 
of  spiritual  life.  In  the  report  printed  in  the  New  Jerusa- 
lem Magazine  to  which  I  have  above  referred  is  an  enormous 
stride  toward  reason.  That  stride  consists  in  admitting — 
now  for  the  first  time  I  think — that  all  words  in  Sweden- 
borg  must  be  interpreted  in  the  light  of  the  context.  This 
is  substantially  admitting  that  when  Swedenborg  says  "  all 
things  are  sustained  by  influx,"  the  context  must  be  examined 
in  order  to  discover  whether  the  subject-matter  is  the  world 
of  life  alone,  on  the  one  hand,  or  the  atoms  of  inert  sub- 
stances that  .compose  the  bodies  and  ranging-ground  of  the 
subjects  of  the  world  of  life,  on  the  other  hand. 

WHAT  is  "  ACTUAUTAS  ?" 

Let  us  return  to  n.  157  of  the  Divine  Love  and  Wisdom, 
which  you  think  teaches  that  each  atom  of  material  sub- 
stance would  turn  into  an  atom  of  nothingness,  were  it  not 
for  a  steady  influx  of  substance  into  it  from  God. 

Swedenborg  there  says,  "  The  sun  of  the  natural  world  is 
mere  fire,  and  thereby  is  dead ;  and  Nature,  since  she  gets 
her  origin  from  that  sun,  is  dead ;  "  and  he  adds  "  The  spir- 
itual Sun  is  quick  (vivus)  and  what  is  dead  does  not  of  itself 
work  anything,  but  it  is  worked  upon." 

Elsewhere  he  says  that  the  sun  of  the  natural  world  (mean- 
ing, not  snnshine,  but  the  sun's  body)  is  composed  of  sub- 
stances whose  activity  produces  fire.  At  n.  157,  he  is  referring 
to  the  sunshine.  But  let  that  pass  ;  only  note  the  distinction 
between  substances  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  activity  of  sub- 
stances on  the  other  hand.  Substances  have  to  be,  before 


94 

there  can  be  any  activity  among  substances  ;  and  this  is  as 
true  of  the  substances  of  the  spiritual  sun  as  of  the  sub- 
stances of  the  natural  sun. 

The  world's  sun  is  dead,  and  Nature  is  dead  too,  says 
Swedenborg.  You  think  that  "  dead  "  here  means  "  without 
independent  reality."  You  think  that  all  things  that  are,  are 
alive,  and  that  the  only  difference  between  the  things  which 
we  call  dead  (as  minerals  for  example),  on  the  one  hand,  and 
the  things  which  we  call  living  (as  animals  for  example), 
on  the  other  hand,  is,  not  that  animals  have  life  and  minerals 
no  life,  but  that  minerals  have  one  degree  of  life — a 
low  degree — and  that  animals  have  a  higher  degree.  I  ask 
you  where  Swedenborg  says  this.  You  will  answer,  "  In  this 
passage  and  in  that,  by  inference."  But  should  such  a  doc- 
trine be  laid  down  only  by  inference  ?  Granting  that  mere 
inference  ought  to  satisfy,  should  we  not  here,  at 
the  supposed  stronghold  of  your  doctrine,  find  at 
least  the  inference.  The  very  opposite  however  is  here 
laid  down.  In  the  next  number,  viz.,  n.  158,  we  find  a  re- 
petition of  the  substance  of  n.  157,  as  found  in  facts  familiar 
to  every  one ;  and  there  at  n.  158,  he  shows  that  the  dead- 
ness  of  Nature  consists,  not  in  the  absence  of  any  reality  in 
matter  except  as  derived  from  your  supposed  influx  into 
matter,  but  in  sheer  inability  to  produce  vegetable  forms. 
Inability  to  do  anything  from  itself  (non  agit  quicquam  a 
se,  n.  157), — this  is  the  essence  of  the  deadness  that  is  in 
Nature.  The  thing  which  it  is  unable  to  do  of  itself  is  also 
there  indicated.  A  clod  of  earth  is  able  to  do  some  things 
of  itself,  viz.,  to  stand  if  it  is  placed,  or  to  go  if  it  is  set  in 
motion  in  an  unresisting  medium,  etc.,  etc.  But  there  is 
one  thing  which  of  itself  it  is  unable  to  do,  viz.,  "to  produce 
the  forms  of  uses,  which  are  vegetables,  or  the  forms  of  life 
which  are  animals,"  n.  158.  To  be  unable  to  do  this  of  itself 
is  what  Swedenborg  calls  being  unable  to  do  anything  of  itself 
(n.  157) ;  and  the  reason  why  he  calls  this  inability  an  inabil- 
ity to  do  anything,  is,  that  the  subject  matter  is  the  produc- 


95 

tion  of  vegetables  and  animals  ;  and  if  a  clod  can  of  itself  do 
nothing  in  this  direction,  he  says  the  clod  is  unable  to  do 
anything  at  all, — meaning,  is  unable  to  do  anything  relating 
to  the  subject  matter. 

He  says  (n.  158)  the  clod  can  do  nothing  of  itself,  because 
{n.  157)  "  what  is  dead  works  nothing  of  itself,  but  is  worked 
upon ;  and  to  ascribe  to  that  dead  thing  any  part  in  the  work 
of  creating,  would  be  like  ascribing  to  an  instrument  fash- 
ioned by  the  workman's  hands  the  work  which  the  work- 
man's own  self  does. "  You  suppose  that  the  "  work  of  creat- 
ing "  here  referred  to  is  your  suggested  work  of  constantly 
recreating  Matter.  How  different  is  the  work  which  Sweden- 
borg  here  describes,  viz. ,  the  perpetual  work  of  creating  and 
sustaining  the  vegetable  and  animal  kingdoms  !  You  think 
the  "  life  "  that  the  spiritual  Sun  constantly  communicates  to 
Nature  is,  amongst  other  things,  a  reality  constantly  be- 
stowed upon  the  clod.  Swedenborg,  on  the  contrary,  teaches 
(n.  158)  that  the  life  communicated  by  the  spiritual  Sun  con- 
sists in  "  actuating "  (actuari)  the  soils,  and  causing  them 
"  to  produce  the  forms  of  uses  which  are  vegetables."  And 
he  says  that  the  soils  are  able  thus  to  be  "  actuated,"  because 
they  are  surrounded  (circumcincta)  by  spiritual  substances 
proceeding  from  the  spiritual  sun.  Surrounded?  How 
comes  this  ?  Natural  substances  surrounded  by  spiritual 
substances !  Is  it  not  your  theory,  and  the  theory  of  nine- 
tenths  of  Swedenborg's  pupils,  that  each  atom  of  natural 
substance  is  still  dependent  on  the  spiritual  for  its  existence, 
and  that  within  each  atom  of  natural  substance  there  is  cer- 
tain substance  which  is  and  remains  spiritual,  and  that 
within  this  spiritual  substance  is  the  living  God,  who  with  a 
Divine  Push  does  each  instant  act  upon  the  spiritual  sub- 
stance within  the  natural  substance,  and  thereby  does  each 
moment  cause  the  atom  of  natural  substance  to  BE ;  so  that 
a  stream  of  reality  comes  to  that  atom  of  natural  substance 
from  its  inmost  where  (as  they  imagine)  dwells  the  living 
God,  and  from  whence  working  outward  He  breeds  each  in- 


96 

stant  the  reality  of  that  atom  ?  And  yet  here  at  n.  158  the 
supposed  father  of  this  doctrine  declares  that  the  effects  which 
living  substance  produces  on  dead  substance  are  effects  pro- 
duced, not  from  within  the  dead  substance,  but  from  without 
it,  through  spiritual  substance  located  not  in  its  interior, 
but  wholly  outside  of  and  surrounding  it.  "  Ah,"  you  will  say, 
"  the  application  here  is  to  something  else,  viz.,  to  the  growth 
of  vegetables ;  it  is  unfair,"  you  will  say,  "  to  adduce  mere 
context  or  proximity,  in  order  to  impugn  the  well-established 
doctrine  of  the  next  preceding  number,  viz.,  n.  157."  Be  it 
so,  I  say  ;  read  carefully  once  more  n.  157,  your  stronghold 
where  you  think  you  find  it  taught  that  (see  the  British 
and  Foreign  Swedenborg  Society's  translation,  A.  D.  1883) 
"  the  actuality "  (i.  e.,  reality)  "  of  the  natural  sun  is  not 
from  itself,  but  from  the  living  force  proceeding  from 
the  sun  of  the  spiritual  world ;  wherefore  if  the  living  force 
of  that  sun  were  withdrawn  or  taken  away,  the  natural  sun 
would  collapse,"  i.  e.t  would  become  a  nothingness.  There  in 
your  stronghold,  by  virtue  of  grotesque  translation,  you 
will  find  this  extraordinary  teaching.  But  notice  the 
reason  there  given  why  that  quality  of  the  natural 
Bun  which  you  suppose  to  be  its  reality,  would  disappear 
were  the  quickening  power  (vis  viva)  of  the  spiritual  sun  to 
be  withdrawn.  The  "  quickening  power  "  which  you  take  to 
be  a  stream  of  reality,  and  which  you  suppose  brings  each 
moment  into  existence  the  substance  of  the  natural  sun — 
bringing  it  into  existence  from  within,  as  you  suppose  and 
cannot  but  suppose — this  "quickening  power,"  I  say, 
Swedenborg  there  describes  as  taking  effect,  not  from  within, 
but  from  without.  He  says  :  "  The  Divine  quickening  is  in 
ternally,  or  from  within  (intus),  in  the  fire  of  the  sun  of  the 
spiritual  world,  but  is  externally  or  from  without  (extus)  in 
the  fire  of  the  sun  of  the  natural  world.  From  this  it  can  be 
seen  that  the  actualitas  of  the  natural  sun  is  not  from  itself, 
but  from  the  quickening  power  (vis  viva)  preceding  from 
the  sun  of  the  spiritual  world ;  wherefore,  if  this  quickening 


97 

power  were  kept  back,  or  were  taken  away,  the  sun  of  the 
natural  world  would  collabi  (collaberetur)"  How,  dear  sir> 
is  it  possible  that  God  can  be  within  any  atom  of  substance, 
and  thence  supply  to  it  its  reality,  and  yet  supply  that  real- 
ity from  without  ?  How  does  the  reality  which  is  within, 
where  (as  you  think)  God  sits  yet  in  it,  find  its  way  to  the 
outside  from  which  it  is  to  strike  in  again  and  effect  its  pur- 
pose ?  If  it  does  find  its  way,  how  needless  the  journeying 
round  about !  If  at  all  it  can  produce  such  an  effect,  must 
not  that  effect  be  necessarily  produced  even  while  it  is  pass- 
ing toward  the  outside  ?  Perhaps  you  will  say  that  intus 
and  extus  mean,  not  "  from  within  "  and  "  from  without/'  but 
"  internally"  and  "externally."  Be  it  so.  Put  it  that  the 
reality  of  any  atom  of  the  natural  sun's  substance  is 
owing  to  a  constant  stream  of  reality  deposited  in  that  atom, 
not  in  that  atom's  inwards,  but  on  its  exteriors.  Now  it  is 
true  that  paint  can  be  laid  on  a  thing  upon  its  exteriors  ;  but 
is  it  true  that  Reality  can  be  communicated  by  being  applied 
to  exteriors?  Examine  your  conception  of  Reality. 
You  say  it  is  a  stream,  steadily  pouring  forth  from 
God,  and  that  if  it  ceased  for  an  instant  to  flow,  all  created 
atoms  of  substance  would  disappear.  Examine,  dear  Sir, 
the  internal  quality  of  such  a  species  of  Reality.  Its  char- 
acteristic, as  you  describe  it,  is  that,  in  and  by  itself  and  un- 
assisted, it  has  the  power — an  innate  power,  and  in  fact  an 
innate  necessity  inevitable — to  turn  into  Nothing.  On  such  a 
reality,  dear  sir,  your  system  is  based.  Out  of  realities 
of  this  sort,  is  not  the  major  portion  of  the  system  of 
Swedenborg's  present  expounders  composed  ? 

WHAT  is  MEANT  BY  "  COLLAPSE." 

The  natural  sun's  substance,  you  say,  would  fall  into  noth- 
ingness were  that  inflowing  stream  of  yours  to  cease  its 
pour  thereinto.  Thus  you  render  Swedenborg's  "  colleger- 
etur"  The  sun's  body,  you  say,  would  "  collapse." 


98 

What  is  "  coUapsing  ?"  To  collapse  is  to  "  faU  in."  A 
bladder  collapses  when  the  air  inside  comes  out.  A  house 
collapses  when  its  walls  so  fall  together  that  there  is  no 
longer  an  inside  of  the  house.  A  boiler  collapses  when  its 
sides  are  pushed  inward  by  atmospheric  pressure.  Do  you 
think  the  sun  would  "  collapse  "  in  some  such  manner?  Yes, 
•  perhaps.  But  is  not  the  sun  a  solid,  unlike  the  bladder, 
the  house,  the  boiler  ?  Or  say  it  is  hollow,  would  a  "  col- 
lapse "  diminish  its  substance?  Is  it  so  with  bladders, 
houses,  boilers,  when  "  collapsing  f  Yet  the  substance  of  the 
sun  and  not  its  form  alone,  is  what  you  think  would  come  to 
nothingness.  In  that  case,  you  will  admit  that  Swedenborg 
has  used  here  a  most  misleading  word,  colldberetur,  where 
he  ought  to  have  said  "  nihil  fieret"  Why  not  change  his 
Latin  ?  You  have  changed  him  in  the  English. 

The  "  collapse  "  which  would  ensue  is  predicated  upon 
the  default  of  an  influx  of  life.  Whether  or  not  life  flows, 
as  you  think  it  does,  and  as  I  think  it  does  not,  into  min- 
erals, in  order  to  continue  their  dead  reality,  it  does  certainly 
flow,  as  you  and  I  agree,  into  living  things.  What  now  do 
you  understand  by  "  collapse"  when  applied  to  living  things? 
What  do  physicians  understand  by  a  "  collapse  ?"  Is  it  not 
a  loss  of  vital  power*1*  Is  it  anything  but  a  loss  of  vital 
power  I  If  what  enables  the  sunshine  to  produce  living- 
things  on  earth  is,  as  Swedenborg  says,  a  certain  vital  power 
accompanying  it  from  the  sunshine  of  the  spiritual  world, 
is  it  not  plain  that  if  the  latter  sunshine  were  to  be  with- 
drawn, the  natural  sunshine  would  "  suffer  collapse,"  i.  e. , 
would  have  no  vital  power, — would,  in  fact,  as  Swedenborg 
declares  in  the  next  number  (n.  158),  be  unable  to  produce 
either  living  vegetables  or  living  animals  ?  Yet  you  think, 
and  nearly  all  of  Swedenborg's  readers  think  with  you,  that 
this  "collapse5'  would  be  an  annihilation  of  the  sun's  body. 
Do  you  not  yet  know  that  the  Latin  "  sol  "  means  "  sun- 
shine "  a  hundred  times  for  every  one  time  that  it  means  the 
"  sun-body  ?"  When  we  say  that  this  plant  is  "in  the  sun," 


99 

and  that  that  plant  is  "  out  of  the  sun,"  do  we  mean  "  in  the 
sun-body,"  or  do  we  mean  "  in  the  sunshine  1"  When  we  say 
"the  sun  is  in  the  room,"  do  we  mean  the  sun-body  is  in 
the  room  ?  When  Swedenborg  says  (Div.  Love  and  Wis.,  n. 
74)  that  the  atmospheres  of  the  natural  world  consist  of 
particles  each  one  of  which  by  itself  "  receives  the  sun " 
(singillatim  recipiunt  solem),  does  he  mean  that  the  sun- 
body  enters  into  each  little  aerial  particle  ?  Do  you  not 
see  that  Swedenborg's  topic  is  the  sunshine  and  its  effects  on 
vegetation,  and  not  the  sun-body  or  the  attractive  power  of 
its  mass  exerted  upon  the  earth  ? 

I  remember  a  learned  criticism  which  appeared  in  a 
Swedenborgian  periodical  some  eight  or  ten  years  ago, 
in  which  the  critic  boldly  overthrew  the  theory  of  the  sun's 
supply  as  obtained  from  meteors  falling  into  it,  and  cour- 
ageously substituted  your  theory  of  a  Divine  supply  in  con- 
formity with  the  supposed  meaning  of  D.  L.  W.,  157.  Evi- 
dently he  either  supposed  that  the  sun's  substance  turns  to 
nothing  as  it  burns,  or  else  that  the  fresh  substance  he  sup- 
posed God  to  furnish  as  per  D.  L.  W.,  n.  157,  would  be 
manufactured  of  such  quality  as  that  it  would  lack  all  of  the 
attractive  power  that  belongs  to  Mass,  and  thereby  would 
fail  to  overthrow  the  solar  system  by  deranging  its  balance 
and  consequently  plunging  the  planets  into  the  sun.  Such, 
dear  sir,  are  the  absurdities  into  which  those  fall  who  skip 
the  religious  doctrines  of  the  New  Church,  viz.,  those  relat- 
ing to  belief  in  a  Man-God  visible  and  to  the  practice  of  Ke- 
pentance  and  to  a  consequent  attainment  unto  a  genuine 
Love  and  Charity  ;  yet  who,  without  any  long  and  conscienti- 
ous scientific  preparation,  busy  themselves  with  evolving 
scientific  dogmas  out  of  statements  of  Swedenborg's,  whose 
comprehension  requires  either  a  scientific  education  or  a 
shrewd  adherence  to  the  facts  of  universal  experience. 


100 


PEINCIPAL  AND  INSTRUMENTAL  CAUSES. 

In  that  number  (n.  157),  Swedenborg  says  that  whereas 
the  sunshine  of  the  natural  world  is  only  dead,  and  whereas 
the  sunshine  of  the  spiritual  Sun  only  has  quickening  power 
in  it,  and  whereas  what  is  dead  cannot  act  upon  anything, 
but  only  what  is  quick  can  act  upon  anything  ;  therefore,  to 
ascribe  to  the  sun  of  nature  anything  of  the  creative  pro- 
cesses in  Nature  would  be  like  ascribing  to  the  instrument 
with  which  a  workman  works,  the  works  of  the  workman's 
self.  At  n.  340  he  says  that  the  forces  of  Nature  in 
producing  vegetable  and  animal  forms  are  no  more  than  is 
the  instrument  in  the  hands  of  the  workman.  And  at  n. 
315  he  says  that  the  forces  of  the  sun  of  Nature  do  not  of 
themselves  produce  the  effects  seen  in  vegetable  growth,  but 
these  forces  regarded  in  themselves  are  naught,  and  that  by 
forces  from  the  spiritual  sun  the  forces  of  the  natural  sun 
are  steadily  made  to  act. 

I  know  right  well  how  you  interpret  these  things.  You 
think  the  spiritual  force  is  within  (intus,  not  extus)  the 
natural  force,  and  steadily  causes  the  natural  force  to  be  a 
force  ;  not  steering  or  guiding  the  natural  force,  as  a  helms- 
man intelligently  steers  a  ship  forced  onward  blindly  by  the 
breeze ;  but  really  begetting  the  natural  force,  as  a  child 
might  imagine  a  ship  might  be  impelled  by  the  helmsman's 
breath  puffed  from  well  aft  against  the  sails.  This  last  is 
the  way  in  which  you,  in  common  with  the  majority  of 
Swedenborg's  readers,  believe  that  spiritual  forces  "  cause 
natural  forces  to  act." 

You  think  that  the  spiritual  is  the  "  principal  cause  " — 
and  in  this  you  are  right;  and  that  the  natural  is  the 
"  instrumental  cause  " — and  in  this  also  you  are  right ;  and 
you  think  that  the  principal  cause  is  the  parent  of  the  sub- 
stance of  the  instrumental  cause — and  in  this  also  you  are 
right. 


101 

But  you  think  that  the  principal  cause  did  not  only  at 
Time's  beginning  furnish,  but  also  at  all  times  and 
presently  and  with  ever  renewed  substance  does  still 
furnish,  the  substance  of  the  instrument  or  instrumental 
cause.  You  also  think  that  the  mode  in  which  the  principal 
cause  ever  makes  the  instrumental  cause  to  effect  its  pur- 
pose is  by  ever  creating  the  substance  (instead  of  merely 
handling  the  forces)  of  the  instrumental  cause  ;  which  crea- 
tion being  thus  (as  you  think)  perpetually  achieved,  the 
instrumental  cause  perpetually  acts  as  agent.  All  persons 
indeed  think  thus  who  confound  the  principal  and  the  in- 
strumental cause  ;  they  have  no  knowledge  of  discrete  de- 
grees, and  they  cannot  rise  from  the  region  of  Blind  Force 
as  an  agent  or  as  an  instrumental  cause,  to  the  region  of  In- 
telligent Will  as  an  Actor  or  principal  cause. 

Let  us,  however,  now  rise.  There  is  nothing  easier,  if  we 
take  Facts  and  not  Words,  whereby  to  rise. 


"ACTUALITAS"    MEANS    ACTIVITY   OB     PRODUCTIVENESS. 

Let  us  look  at  this  word  "  actualitas." 

The  Romans  and  their  forefathers  had  a  word  "  ago"  It 
meant  "  I  drive."  It  meant,  to  drive  as  shepherds  drove 
their  flocks,  or  as  the  wind  drove  those  flocks  of  the  Sun 
which  the  folk  of  olden  time  descried  in  the  clouds. 

From  the  root  ag,  sprang  ag-men,  meaning  "  a  driven 
herd,"  or,  as  we  say,  a  drove,  and  finally  "  an  army."  From 
ag,  came  ag-nus,  a  driven  beast,  thus  a  lamb  of  the  flock. 
From  ag  came  ag-ilis,  meaning  drive-like,  driving,  drivable  ; 
that  is  to  say,  not  knocked-up,  or  lying  down  as  unable  to  be 
driven  further,  but  a-foot  and  rushing,  plunging,  kicking, 
scurrying,  leaping,  altogether  as  is  the  wont  of  driven  sheep 
and  kine  ;  thus,  nimble  or  agile. 

They  who  begot  the  fathers  of  the  Romans  and 
the  fathers  of  ourselves  were  shepherds  and  herders. 


102 

Their  tongues  show  it  clearly.  The  Roman  word  for 
"money"  ran  back  to  "flock."  Our  impecunious  man  is, 
etymologically,  a  man  "  without  flock."  To  pay  a  man  his 
"  fee,"  means  to  pay  him  "  cattle."  We  get  this  word  "  fee," 
not  from  the  Latin,  but  from  the  Norse  and  from  the 
Saxons ;  yet  Grimm's  law  shows  it  to  be  the  same  root  as 
pec  in  the  Latin  pecus,  a  flock,  whence  pecunia,  money. 
The  word  runs  back  to  a  time  when  our  blue-eyed  stock  had 
not  begun  to  swarm  southwest  to  the  Mediterranean,  or 
northwest  toward  the  Baltic.  To-day,  this  word  "  fee," 
meaning  "  cattle  "  in  German,  sounds  in  German  just  as  in 
English,  although  spelled  otherwise.  In  Sanscrit,  does  not 
the  word  for  "battle  "  mean  "  a  scrimmage  about  the  cows?" 
The  Sanscrit  "go-cara,"  which  literally  means  "  ranged  over 
by  one's  cattle,"  means  derivatively,  "  within  one's  scope  of 
action."  In  those  old  times,  herd-words  ran  into  civil  life, 
as  on  our  western  plains  to-day,  and  made  their  marks  in 
language  ;  they  ran  even  into  family  relationships,  and  they 
partly  named  those  relationships.  In  our  Northern  tongues, 
and  in  Greek  as  well,  is  not  "  daughter  "  the  "  dug- worker," 
that  is,  the  milker  of  the  cows  and  ewes  ? 

The  life  of  these  pre-historic  fathers  was  largely  one  of 
idleness.  Every  shepherd  told  his  tale  under  the  hawthorn 
in  the  dale.  They  lived  by  their  flocks  and  herds  ;  their 
work  was  to  drive  these  from  one  spot  to  another,  to  grass 
or  to  water.  Thence  it  came  that,  with  them,  "  work  "  lay 
in  driving  ;  and  to  "  drive  "  meant  to  work,  to  do,  to  make, 
to  carry  on  business,  to  put  through  and  accomplish. 

In  the  supine,  and  in  the  perfect  participle  passive,  the  g  of 
ago  hardens  into  c,  because  there  the  hard  consonant  t  fol- 
lows the  g.  Thus,  in  conjugating  ago,  the  Roman  ancestors 
got  ac-tum  esse,  "  to  have  been  driven,"  or  (what  was  then  the 
same  thing),  "  to  have  been  done  or  performed  ;"  thus  ac-tus, 
a  driving,  a  drift,  meant  also  a  deed  or  performance,  a  bit 
of  accomplished  business,  or,  as  we  say,  an  act.  Actio  was 
the  driving  of  a  matter,  or  the  pushing  of  it  forward  in  a 


103 

lively  way.  So  we  Saxons  call  a  live  man  of  business  a  driv- 
ing man,  or  a  thriving  man — for  "  thrive  "  is  the  same  word 
with  "  drive  " — and  we  call  him  a  thrifty  man,  or  a  man  of 
thrift ;  and  when  we  mean  to  ask  what  business  a  man  has 
been  about,  or  what  he  has  been  doing,  we  may  ask  what 
he  has  been  driving  at.  To  bid  one  "  drive  "  some  busi- 
ness that  has  been  entrusted  to  him,  is  to  bid  him  act  with 
energy  ;  and  a  man  whose  wont  it  is  to  act  thus  is  said  to 
have  some  drive  in  him.  Thus,  in  old  Norse,  drifa,  meaning 
to  drive,  means  also  to  perform  •  "  sig  drifa  "  is  to  exert 
oneself ;  and  in  German,  "  Be-£He#-samkeit,"  which  literally 
means  drivingness,  is  the  "  activity  "  with  which  one  bestirs 
himself  in  his  daily  calling. 

Thus,  in  their  bottom  meaning,  the  derivatives  of 
"ago"  necessarily  take  the  notion  of  efficiency,  performance, 
or,  as  we  say,  oc-tion  ;  and  these  words  all  relate  to  that 
third  degree  of  Life  which  is  involved  in  Activity,  as  dis- 
tinguished from  the  second  degree,  which  is  involved  in  Con- 
templation, and  which  is  a  matter  of  the  Intellect ;  and  as 
still  more  distinguished  from  the  first  degree,  which 
first  degree  is  involved  in  Hankering  and  Desire,  and  which 
is  matter  of  the  Will.  Nothing  is  at  all  real  whilst  it  is  only 
a  matter  of  Desire.  Nothing  begins  to  be  real  without  first 
becoming  a  matter  of  Plan  and  Understanding ;  or  until,  as 
we  say,  it  "  begins  to  be  realized."  And  nothing  becomes 
absolutely  real  until  it  has  passed  into  Act.  And  because 
when  it  has  passed  into  Act,  it  has  become  real,  the  acting 
out  of  any  desire  or  plan  comes  (of  late)  to  mean  the  realiz- 
ing of  it,  or  the  making  of  it  into  a  reality.  Now  after  it 
has  become  a  reality,  the  dynamic  action  whereby  it  became 
a  reality  may  easily  be  forgotten,  and  only  the  static  fact  of 
its  present  reality  be  borne  in  mind ;  thus,  of  late  years,  it 
has  come  about  that  act-u-ality,  which  before  had  referred 
to  a  state  of  acting  or  really  performing,  as  distinguished 
from  a  state  of  ideal  hankering  and  ideal  planning,  means 


104 

now  a  state  of  bare  Fact  or  Keality,  without  any  the  least 
suggestion  of  activity. 

The  adjective  and  noun  derived  from  " ago"  viz :  "  act- 
ual-is "  and  "  act-ual-itas,"  meant  respectively  "  being  in  ac- 
tivity," and  "  the  state  of  being  in  activity.  With  these 
meanings  alone  they  were  taken  over  into  several  European 
tongues,  including  English  ;  and  in  English  they  long  pre- 
served their  original  meaning.  Till  long  after  Swedenborg's 
school-days  were  over,  "  actual "  and  "  actuality  "  meant  in 
English  what  I  have  stated,  and  seldom  or  never  had  any 
reference  to  "reality."  It  was  not  till  within  the  memory  of 
our  grandfathers  that  this  new  meaning  of  "  reality  "  began 
to  attach  in  English.  In  French  the  change  was  somewhat 
earlier.  All  this,  as  to  English,  can  be  clearly  seen  in  John- 
son's Dictionary ;  i.  e.  the  tendency  to  this  change  can  be 
seen ;  but  in  Johnson's  time  the  change  had  not  come  about. 

From  Johnson's  English  Dictionary,  published  some 
dozen  years  before  the  writing  of  the  Divine  Love  and  Wis- 
dom, I  make  the  following  extract,  on  the  words  "  actual " 
and  "actuality."  I  supplement  with  a  few  words  of  the 
context  the  quotations  he  makes  from  Milton  and  from 
Cheyne,  showing  the  meaning  of  the  respective  writers.  The 
words  which  I  thus  supply  I  put  in  brackets ;  if  the  words  in 
brackets  are  stricken  out,  the  extract  from  Johnson  will  be 
exact : 

"  ACTUAL,  adj.  [actuel,  Fr.] 

"  1.  That  which  comprises  action. 

"  In  this  slumbry  agitation,  what  besides  her  walk- 
"  ing  and  other  actual  performances,  what,  at  any 
"  time,  have  you  heard  her  say  I 

"  Shakespeare's  Macbeth. 

"  2.  Eeally  in  act ;  not  merely  potential. 

"  [Meanwhile  in  Paradise  the  hellish  pair 

"  Too  soon  arrived ;  ]  Sin,  there  in  pow'r  before 


105 

"  Once  actual ;  now  in  body,  and  to  dwell 
"  Habitual  habitant. 

"  Milt.  Paradise  Lost,  b.  x.  I  587. 

"  3.  In  act,  not  purely  in  speculation. 

"  For  he  that  but  conceives  a  crime  in  thought 
"  Contracts  the  danger  of  an  actual  fault ; 
"  Then  what  must  he  expect,  that  still  proceeds 
"  To  finish  sin,  and  work  up  thoughts  to  deeds  ? 

"  Dryderis  Juvenal,  Sat.  XIH. 

"  ACTUALITY,  n.  s.  [from  actual]  The  state  of  being  actual. 

"  The  actuality  [,  as  the  metaphysicians  speak,  ]  of  these 
"  spiritual  qualities  is  thus  imprisoned,  though  their  potenti- 
"  ality  be  not  quite  destroyed ;  and  thus  a  crass,  extended, 
"  impenetrable,  passive,  divisible,  unintelligent  substance  is 
"  generated,  which  we  call  matter  [,  but  when  this  matter 
"  thus  formed  out  of  a  spiritual  substance  is  again  infinitely 
"  refined  and  exalted,  these  Powers  and  Qualities  are  un- 
"  loosed,  set  at  freedom  again,  and  exert  themselves  as  for- 
"  merly.] 

"  Cheyn.  Phil.  Princ." 

In  the  citation  from  Macbeth,  actual  clearly  means  "  re- 
lating to  act ;  "  walking  being  one  of  her  act-ual  or  act-ive 
performances,  and  her  other  act-ual  or  act-ive  performances 
being  now  enquired  about.  Note  the  concurrence  of  the 
cognate  word  "  agitation,"  just  as  with  "  agitur  "  and  "  actu- 
alitas  "  in  D.  L.  W.  n.  157,  and  just  as  with  "  actuantur " 
and  "  actualitates  "  and  "  activitates  "  meaning  "  vires,"  in 
D.  L.  W.  n.  200. 

In  the  citation  from  Milton,  note  the  meaning,  viz.,  that 
before  Sins'  bodily  arrival  (or,  as  the  nineteenth  century 
English  would  read,  before  its  actual  presence)  in  Paradise, 
Sin  was  present  in  that  it  was  powerful  and  act-ual  (or 
act-ive,  as  we  say  in  the  nineteeth  century)  in  Paradise. 


106 

Note  that  this,  the  former  use,  of  "  actual "  is  quite  opposite 
to  its  present  use. 

In  the  citation  from  Dryden,  note  that  an  "  actual  fault " 
does  not  mean  a  fault  considered  as  a  reality,  but  a  fault  in 
act,  wrought  out  from  the  thought,  a  fault  not  in  the 
thought  or  conception  but  in  act.  During  the  time  it  is 
still  in  the  thought  or  conception  merely,  a  fault  is  (in  the 
modern  sense  of  the  word)  quite  as  "  actual "  as  after  it  has 
been  performed.  Not  such  meaning  as  at  present  had  the 
word  in  Dryden's  time. 

In  the  citation  from  Cheyne  (who  wrote  A.  D.  1715),  ob- 
serve that  the  "  actuality  "  of  the  spiritual  qualities,  which  is 
described  as  "  imprisoned  "  so  long  as  spiritual  substances 
are  conglomerated  into  matter,  is  a  quality  which,  when 
matter  is  (as  that  writer  holds)  exalted  again  into  spiritual 
substance,  is  set  loose  and  at  freedom,  and  then  "  exerts " 
itself.  Their  "  actuality  "  is  a  quality  which  is  imprisoned 
at  first,  and  afterwards  is  set  free  and  exerts  itself.  Now 
for  "  act-uality  "  read  "  act-ivity,"  and  the  words  make  sense, 
be  they  true  or  not.  For  "  act-uality  "  read  "  reality,"  and 
the  words  make  nonsense,  just  as  in  the  favorite  trans- 
lations of  D.  L.  W.,  nn.  157,  82,  200 .  Arc.  CoeL,  nn.  633, 
6138,  6961 ;  True  Chr.  ReL,  n.  530  ;  Sp.  Diary,  nn. 
3708,  39941  4039,  4055,  4224,  4080,  4091,  4113.  Similar 
nonsense  is  made  by  rendering  in  modern  English,  "  act- 
ualis "  as  "  actual."  Modern  lexicographers  may  endeavor 
to  import  into  the  ancient  use  of  "  actual "  the  modern 
meaning.  Let  the  whole  context  of  their  citations  be  well 
examined. 

In  two  or  three  passages  Swedenborg  uses  "  actualis  "  in  a 
sense  approximating  the  new  sense ;  but  in  all  the  hundreds 
of  other  cases,  he  uses  "  actualis  "  in  its  original  sense,  mean- 
ing "relating  to  action,"  or  "relating  to  daily  life,"  or  "re- 
lating to  what  a  man  does  as  distinguished  from  what  he 
thinks  or  pretends."  He  uses  "  actualitas "  invariably  in 
this  latter  sense,  i.  e.,  the  sense  of  "doing,"  "effecting," 


107 

" performing,"  "producing,"  "acting."  Compare  the  " act- 
ualitas  "  of  the  Divine  Love  and  Wisdom,  n.  157,  with  the 
same  word  at  n.  200 ;  and  with  the  "  act-uari  "  at  n.  158  ; 
and  with  the  "  quod  mortuum  est,  non  ag-it  quicquam,  sed 
ag-itur  "  of  n.  157  ;  and  compare  the  "  act-ualitas  "  of  n.  200, 
with  the  "  act-ualitates  "  of  n.  200,  and  the  "  act-uantur"  of 
n.  177;  do  these  things,  and  you  will  not  fail  to  see  the 
meaning  of  "  act-ualitas."  Immanuel  Tafel,  in  his  German 
translation,  at  n.  157  of  the  Divine  Love  and  Wisdom r 
rightly  renders  it  "  Thatigkeit,"  meaning  "  activity ;  "  not 
Wirklichkeit,  which  means  actuality,  i.  e.,  reality. 


AN  ILLUSTRATION  OF  "  ACTUALITAS  "  OB  EFFECTIVENESS. 

You  have  probably  seen  a  steam  dredge  or  mud  excavator — 
a  machine  used  for  dredging  out  piers  and  harbors.  About 
the  dredge  itself  there  is  not  much  that  is  interesting ;  but 
the  dredge  when  in  actual  operation  is  a  very  interesting 
object.  With  a  high  degree  of  intelligence  and  with  much 
care,  and  with  all  due  gentleness,  it  swings  out,  with  its  long 
arm,  a  great  pot  or  scoop,  in  fashion  such  as  that  in  de- 
scending into  the  water  the  scoop  shall  clear  the  sides  of 
the  dredge.  Then  with  the  same  care  and  gentleness  it 
lowers  the  scoop  down  to  the  bottom,  and  with  superb  skill 
deposits  the  scoop  so  as  to  take  hold  of  the  mud ;  and  as 
soon  as  it  has  got  a  good  scoopful  it  raises  up  the  scoop  with 
great  caution,  and  when  the  scoop  has  reached  the  proper 
height,  swings  the  same  tenderly  in-board,  and  deposits  the 
mud  softly  within  the  dredge.  Were  this  witnessed  by  a 
savage,  or  indeed  by  any  simple-mi  Tided  person  unacquainted 
with  steam  machinery,  and  unacquainted  with  the  perfection 
of  the  processes  to  which  machinery  is  now  applied,  and  es- 
pecially unacquainted  with  the  present  perfection  of  steam 
dredges,  such  a  person  might  well  declare  that  the  steam  en- 
gine is  possessed  of  an  intelligent  will  and  of  a  correspond- 


108 

ing  wisdom.  The  truth  is,  there  are  two  causes  for  this 
behavior  of  the  dredge.  One  of  them  is  what  Sweden- 
borg  calls  an  "  instrumental "  cause  ;  the  other  is  what 
he  calls  a  "  principal "  cause ;  and  he  says  the  prin- 
cipal cause  compels  the  instrumental  cause  to  work  ;  and 
says  that  it,  through  the  instrumental  cause,  does 
itself  produce  all  the  effects  that  are  produced  ; 
wherefore,  says  he,  to  ascribe  to  that  cause  (which  I 
here  call  the  instrumental)  any  of  the  effects  produced  by  it, 
would  be  like  ascribing  to  the  instrument  which  the  work- 
man has  made,  the  work  which  the  workman's  self  has  pro- 
duced (D.  L.  W.,  n.  157,  n  315,  etc.).  These  two  causes  are 
separated  by  a  discrete  degree.  The  lower  cause,  which  is 
the  instrument,  consists  of  the  heat  produced  in  the  furnace, 
which  heat  generates  steam  in  the  boiler,  and  thus  works 
the  engine.  This  is  a  blind  force,  an  unintelligent  force,  a 
force  that  has  no  will ;  a  force  that  of  itself  could  not  pro- 
duce any  such  effect  as  the  dredging  out  of  pier  or  harbor. 
The  higher  force  is  intelligent  and  has  a  will ;  it  resides 
within  the  mind  of  the  engineer  who  runs  the  dredge.  This 
engineer  "  compels  "  the  furnace,  the  boiler,  the  engine,  to 
do  those  things  which  they  perform  (D.  L.  "W.,  n.  315).  I 
say  the  higher  force  is  separated  from  the  lower  force  by  a 
discrete  degree.  The  lower  force  is  purely  natural,  and  its 
forces  are  all  derived  from  the  realm  of  nature.  The  higher 
force  is  purely  spiritual,  and  it  is  wholly  derived  from  the 
realm  of  spirit.  It  is  true  that  there  is  belonging  to  the 
engineer — that  is  to  say,  to  his  body — a  certain  force  which 
belongs  equally  to  the  realm  of  nature  with  the  force  of  the 
engine.  This  natural  force  of  the  engineer  is  a  force  which 
is  generated  in  his  body  by  changes  of  form  in  the  sub- 
stances which  he  takes  into  his  mouth  as  food  and 
takes  into  his  lungs  as  oxygen.  But  besides  this  natural 
force  which  the  engineer's  body  possesses,  there  is  a  higher 
force  within  him,  which  is  that  same  intelligent  and  willing 
force  that  I  have  mentioned,  and  which  is  separated  from 


109 

the  lower  forces  (including  in  these  lower  forces  both  the 
forces  of  his  own  body  and  the  forces  of  the  engine's  body) 
by  a  discrete  degree.  The  higher  force  within  him,  which 
is  a  "  principal "  cause,  and  which  compels  all  "  instrumen- 
tal "  causes  to  work  its  will,  is  a  force  which  prevails  in  cer- 
tain spiritual  substances  in  his  brain,  which  lie  in  among  the 
natural  substances  of  his  brain  (D.  L.  W.,  nn.  257,  260);  and 
these  spiritual  substances  are  of  nature  such  as  that — their 
particles  not  having  been  collected  or  massed  into  material 
particles — they  are  capable  of  vibrating  to  the  pulse  of  the 
spiritual  ether,  the  vibrations  of  which  (as  spiritual  heat  and 
spiritual  light)  are  propagated  through  the  spiritual  Sun, 
from  their  inmost  source  of  motion,  which  source  is  the 
Heart  and  Lungs  of  the  Divine  Man  (D.  L.  W.,  n.  291) 

ANALYZE  THE  TWO  CAUSES. 

Let  us  set  completely  separate  and  apart  from  each  other 
the  two  elements  of  which  this  total  wise  and  useful  working 
of  the  steam  dredge — its  actualitas,  D.  L.  W.  n.  157 — is 
composed.  The  engineer's  will  and  wisdom,  which  consti- 
tute a  spiritual  force,  are — or,  if  you  like,  is — one  of  thess 
two  parts.  This  part  is  the  "  principal "  cause.  This  prin- 
cipal cause  lies  in  the  spiritual  portion  of  those  substances 
of  which  his  natural  mind  is  composed  (Div.  Love  and  Wis., 
nn.  257,  260) ;  some  of  which  substances  are  spiritual  and 
some  of  which  are  natural ;  it  being  only  in  the  spiritual 
substances  of  his  mind  find  not  at  all  in  the  natural  sub- 
stances of  his  mind  that  the  thinking  and  willing  which  are 
necessary  to  control  and  "  run  "  the  steam  dredge  go  on ; 
the  reason  of  this  fact  being  that  essential  thought  is  merely 
a  change  of  form  of  substances,  and  that  such  change  is  only 
to  be  produced  by  that  pulsing  motion  of  the  spiritual  ether 
which  is  known  as  spiritual  heat  and  spiritual  light,  and 
which  consequently  (Div.  Love  and  Wisdom,  nos.  257,  5.)  is 
only  to  be  produced  in  spiritual  substances,  since  only  spir- 


110 

itual  substances  are  able  to  beat  to  the  beat  of  the  spiritual 
ether,  which  ether  derives  its  pulse  from  the  Heart  and 
Lungs  of  the  Divine  Man  (Div.  Love  and  Wisdom  nos.  291, 
174,  176).  Here,  I  say,  in  the  spiritual  substances  of  his 
natural  mind,  in  their  changes  of  form  (which  changes  pro- 
duce the  force  that  results  ever  from  any  change  of  form), 
resides  the  head  cause,  or  "  principal  "  cause,  of  the  working 
of  that  steam  dredge,  so  useful,  so  intelligent,  so  powerful. 
On  the  other  side —  on  the  other  side,  let  me  repeat  it, — 
lie  all  the  natural  forces  which  work  the  dredge,  to  wit ;  the 
forces  proceeding  from  the  change  of  form  in  the  natural 
substances  of  the  engineer's  natural  mind,  the  forces  pro- 
duced in  his  body  and  its  muscles  by  virtue  of  the  changes 
of  form  in  the  substance  of  his  food,  and  the  forces  produced 
in  the  engine  (and  thence  upon  the  steam  dredge's  crane 
and  scoop)  by  the  change  of  form  in  the  substances  called 
carbon  and  oxygen  (furnished  from  the  coal  and  from  the  air 
admitted  to  the  furnace),  and  by  the  consequent  change  of 
form  produced  in  the  water-particles  in  the  boiler  where 
they  change  into  steam  particles  by  being  shaken  to  pieces, 
and  in  the  still  further  consequent  and  steady  change  of 
form  in  the  engine,  which  change  of  form  of  engine  the  pis- 
ton (being  thrust  upon  and  hammered  with  innumerable 
blows  of  innumerable  madly-rushing  steam  particles,  and 
constantly  giving  ground  before  those  blows)  produces, 
moving  thus  constantly  up  and  down,  and  thus  turning  the 
crank  of  the  engine.  All  these  forces — reckoning  even  from 
the  forces  proceeding  from  change  of  form  in  such  sub- 
stances of  the  natural  mind  as  are  merely  natural,  down  to 
the  forces  proceeding  from  the  steady  change  of  form  in  the 
engine — are  all  natural,  all  purely  natural,  and  all  therefore 
"  dead  "  (Div.  Love  and  Wis.  n.  157),  because  belonging 
merely  to  the  realm  of  Nature ;  and  in  them  there  is  no  in- 
telligence or  life  whatsoever.  Whereas  in  the  other  set  of 
forces,  to  wit,  the  forces  proceeding  from  change  of  form 
in  such  of  the  substances  of  the  natural  mind  as  are  spirit- 


Ill 

ual  (Div.  Love  and    Wis.  n.   257,  5)  there  is   intelligence 
and  there  is  life. 

It  is  natural  fire  that  makes  the  engine  go ;  and  if  we 
trace  back  the  history  of  the  coal,  we  shall  find  that  it  is  fire 
of  the  natural  sun,  such  as  is  referred  to  in  the  Div.  Love  and 
Wis.  n.  157.  It  is  sheer  natural  fire,  from  which  all  life 
has  been  abstracted  (Div.  Love  and  Wis.  n.  157).  It  is 
"  dead,"  and  what  is  dead  does  not  act  upon  anything," 
(Div  Love  and  Wis.  n.  157);  nor  consequently  can  it 
deepen  harbors  by  digging  out  the  mud,  as  does  this  steam 
dredge ;  "  it  is  only  acted  upon  "  (Div.  Love  and  Wis.  n. 
157),  and  is  forced  and  "  compelled"  (Div.  Love  and  Wis.  n. 
315)  to  deepen  the  harbor  by  scooping  out  the  mud. 

Two  INDEPENDENT  KINDS  OF  HEAT. 

That  which  makes  the  intelligence  which  makes  and  runs 
the  steam  dredge,  is  also  fire ;  but  it  is  living  fire  ;  fire  in 
which  (Div.  Love  and  Wis.  n.  157)  is  Life  from  God,  a 
vita  divina.  This  fire  is  therefore  the  "  principal "  cause. 
To  ascribe  to  the  fire  of  the  furnace,  which  is  a  dead  fire, 
anything  of  the  work  of  deepening  the  harbor,  "  would  be 
like  ascribing  to  the  instrument  which  is  worked  by  the  hand 
of  the  workman,  the  work  which  the  workman  himself  doth 
work "  (Div.  Love  and  Wis.  n.  157).  But  look  you  now  : 
the  fire  which  is  in  the  engineer's  mind  and  is  spiritual, 
"  enters  into  "  the  fire  which  is  in  the  furnace  and  is  natural, 
and  "perpetually  makes  it  work  to  the  above  purposes" 
(Div.  Love  and  Wis.  n.  315).  Do  you  not  see  that  this  is 
so  ?  In  your  system  of  explaining  the  relation  between  the 
spiritual  and  the  natural,  and  in  your  system  of  interpreting 
n.  157  of  the  Divine  Love  and  Wisdom,  you  would  have  it 
(or  you  would  have  it,  were  you  thoroughly  consistent  always) 
that  some  of  the  engineer's  intelligence,  as  an  actual  quan- 
tity of  composing  material,  passes  out  of  his  mind  and  "  en- 
ters into  "  the  furnace,  and  makes  it  burn,  in  the  sense  of 


112 

furnishing  to  it  an  unseen  fuel,  and  thus  causing  it  to 
drive  the  engine ;  and  you  would  have  it  that  this  spiritual  fire 
in  fact  comprises  and  makes  up  the  substance  of  the  coal, 
and  originates  the  substantial  motion  arising  from  the  coal's 
consumption.  For  you  do  not  raise  your  eyes  above  Nature, 
nor  understand  that  spiritual  intelligence  and  natural  force 
"  are  so  distinct  that  they  have  nothing  common  between 
them,  although  they  have  been  so  created  that  they  com- 
mune, yea  are  joined  together,  by  virtue  of  the  correspond- 
ence between  them "  (Div.  Love  and  Wis.  n.  83).  You 
cannot  understand  that  spiritual  heat  and  light,  on  the  one 
hand,  and  natural  heat  and  light,  on  the  other  hand,  "  are  of 
utterly  diverse  essence "  (Div.  Love  and  Wis.  n.  90),  and 
that  these  two  activities  "  have  no  other  communication  than 
by  virtue  of  this,  viz.,  that  one  answers  to  the  other  " — 
communicatio  non  alia  datur  quam  per  correspondents 
(Div.  Love  and  Wis.  n.  90).  You  will  have  it  that  one  sits 
actually  inside  of  the  other  and  in  fact  makes  the  other  up 
steadily ;  and  that  if  a  man  might  prick  the  one  deep  enough, 
he  should  surely  find  the  other  inside  of  it ! 

But,  dear  sir,  the  truly  human  (as  well  as  the  angelic)  idea 
of  the  two  several  fires  whereby  the  steam  dredge  is  im- 
pelled to  scoop  up  mud  and  deepen  harbors,  is  as  follows : 
One  is  a  fire  proceeding  originally  and  once-for-all 
from  the  sun  of  the  natural  world,  and  the  other 
is  a  fire  proceeding  steadily  from  the  sun  of  the  spirit- 
ual world.  There  is  a  life  from  God  which  is  inwardly, 
or  from  within,  in  the  fire  of  the  spiritual  world,  and  this 
fire  prevails  in  the  engineer's  mind  and  drives  him  (and  also 
guides  him)  to  drive  and  guide  the  steam  dredge.  But  this 
fire  from  God  is  not  "from  within"  (intus)  in  the  furnace 
fire ;  the  latter  fire  was  originally  from  the  sun  of  the  natural 
world  alone ;  the  living  fire  is  from  God.  The  living  fire  is 
in  the  operations  of  that  furnace  fire  merely  "from  without," 
(extus) ;  that  is  to  say,  it  acts  upon  that  furnace  and  upon  the 
steam  dredge's  motive  fire  "from  without ;"  and,  from  with- 


113 

out,  it  causes  that  fire  to  be  kindled  and  fed  in  a  rational 
manner,  and  guides  and  manages  that  fire  (as  also  the 
movements  of  the  engine  and  dredge)  in  intelligent  fashion, 
altogether  as  you  see ;  but  not  a  bit  of  its  substance  enters 
that  natural  fire,  or  ever  is  within  it  in  any  other  sense  than 
that  it  is  present  in  the  Uses  of  that  natural  fire.  Uses  are 
spiritual,  and  in  Uses  the  Life  from  God  can  be  present,  but 
Life  from  Him  cannot  be  present  in  a  material  sense,  which 
material  sense  is  the  sense  you  contend  for.  "  From  all  this 
it  is  able  to  be  seen  that  the  performing  power  or  effectuating 
capacity  (actualitas)"  of  the  furnace  fire  "  is  not  from  itself  but 
from  the  living  power  proceeding  from  the  sun  of  the  spiritual 
world"  (Div.  Love  and  Wis.  n.  157);  to  which  the  fire  of 
the  furnace  is  added  that  it  may  furnish  aid,  as  a  kind  of 
substitute  in  the  realm  of  matter  (Div.  Love  and  Wis.  n. 
153) ;  forasmuch  as  spiritual  intelligence  and  warmth  can- 
not of  themselves  push  pistons  up  and  down,  but  must  use 
agents  for  that  purpose,  viz.,  natural  substances  whose  forms 
are  changing  and  which  therefore  are  developing  a  fit  force, 
viz.,  a  natural  force  capable  of  budging  a  piston.  "  And  for 
the  above  reason,  were  the  living  power  of  the  sun  of  the 
spiritual  world  to  be  held  back  or  taken  away  "  (Div.  Love 
and  Wis.  n.  157),  the  furnace  fire  would  quickly  go  out,  being 
neglected,  and  thereby  would  lose  all  "capacity  of  producing'' 
(actualitas)  those  intelligent — those  indeed  comically  intelli- 
gent— effects  which  the  steam  dredge's  crane  and  scoop  do 
constantly  bring  about.  But  you,  dear  sir,  think  the  actu- 
alitas of  the  steam  dredge  is  its  mere  substance  merely  float- 
ing there  in  the  water;  you  think  its  actualitas  is  its  mere 
reality,  its  "  actuality"  as  you  say — costing  some  fifty  dollars 
a  day  to  the  owner  and  still  more  to  the  Government  doubt- 
less, yet  perhaps  doing  no  work  whatever,  or  at  least  no  in- 
telligent and  faithful  work ;  and  yet  in  all  such  uselessness 
fulfilling  completely  your  notion  of  "  actualitas." 

With  the  vegetable  creation,  whose  constant  bringing  about 
is  described  in  the  Divine  Love  and  Wisdom  at  nn.  157,  158, 


114 

the  double  process  is  just  the  same  as  with  intelligent  steam 
dredging.  You  see  I  have  freely  applied  the  terms  of  green- 
house culture  to  a  description  of  steam-dredge  working. 
But  the  sublime  processes  of  botany  are  not  to  be  described 
in  this  poor  letter.  Go  to  books  on  botany  and  you  will  find 
them  described. 

THE  "ACTIVE,"  THE  "MIDDLE"  AND  THE  "PASSIVE"  FORCES. 

In  books  on  botany  you  will  find  described  the  action  of 
the  atmospheres,  which  are  the  "  active  forces ;"  of  the 
liquids  which  are  the  " middle  forces;"  and  of  the  earthy 
matters  which  are  the  "passive  forces"  (Dw.  Love  and  Wis., 
nn.  173,  174,  177 — whicE  compare  with  the  Apocalypse  Ex- 
plained, n.  1208  to  n.  1220,  continuations)  ;  and  you  will  also 
find  described  many  other  things  mentioned  casually  in  the 
Divine  Love  and  Wisdom,  which  can  be  understood  only  by 
one  who  knows  what  Swedenborg  had  in  mind,  and  the 
botanical  processes  with  which  he  was  familiar  beyond  any 
man  of  his  day,  and  which  since  his  day  have  become 
matters  of  common  scientific  knowledge.  The  tree  is  just  as 
much  of  a  machine  as  is  the  steam  dredge ;  there  are 
its  "active  powers"  which  are  in  the  atmospheres, 
both  aerial  and  atmospheric,  and  belong  to  the 
gaseous  degree  ;  just  as  the  vibratory  ether  (whose 
pulses  move  the  engine)  belongs  to  the  gaseous  degree  or 
stage.  Its  middle  powers,  which  are  water  and  also  sap,  belong 
to  the  liquid  degree  or  stage,  just  as  the  water  of  the  boiler 
belongs  to  the  liquid  degree  or  stage.  Its  passive  powers  are 
the  matters  from  the  soil,  and  are  also  the  eventually-formed 
woody  cells,  and  they  belong  to  the  solid  degree  or  stage, 
just  as  the  hard  reactive  substances  of  the  boiler  the  cylinder 
and  the  piston  belong  to  the  solid  degree  or  stage.  But 
in  a  tree  (as  in  a  steam  dredge  when  it  is  "  run  "  by  a 
capable  and  watchful  engineer),  there  are  present,  be- 
sides these  three  forces  of  nature,  the  analogous  forces  of 


115 

Spirit ;  and  the  field  in  which  the  forces  of  Spirit  bear  sway 
is  in  those  spiritual  substances  which  are  among  the  natural 
substances  of  the  soil,  and  which  He  outside  of  the  soil's 
natural  substances,  and  which  lie  surrounding  those  natural 
substances  (Div.  Love  and  Wis.,  n.  158)  and  which  do  not 
in  the  least  lie  inside,  although  you  hold  quite  the  contrary. 
The  field  of  those  forces  of  Spirit  is  likewise  in  spiritual 
substances  which  are  outside  the  natural  atmospheres  (Die. 
Love  and  Wis.,  n.  175) — not  inside,  though  you  hold  the 
contrary.  These  spiritual  substances  are  most  subtle  (Div. 
Love  and  Wis.,  n.  310)  and  are  able  to  be  brought  into 
organic  union  (conjunctionem  cum  materiis  ex  origine 
naturali)  with  those  natural  substances  which  are  fur- 
nished from  the  atmosphere  and  the  earth  (Div.  Love  and 
Wis.,  n.  310),  as  soon  as  the  natural  particles  in  the  grow- 
ing seed  are  somewhat  shaken  apart  by  the  heat  vibrations. 
It  is  these  spiritual  substances  which  are  present  with  the 
plant  (or  rather  it  is  the  molecular  movements  constantly 
produced  within  these  spiritual  substances  by  the  beating  of 
the  heat-and-light  waves  of  the  spiritual  ether) — it  is  these 
that  give  the  plant  its  growing  power  and  its  prolific  power. 
A  kind  of  life  they  give  to  it ;  and  in  controlling  and  direct- 
ing the  dead  and  merely  natural  forces  which  it  derives  from 
the  world  of  nature,  they  play  a  corresponding  and  similar 
part  to  the  part  played  by  the  spiritual  substances  which 
form  part  of  the  natural  mind  of  the  engineer  that  runs  the 
steam  dredge  (Divine  Love  and  Wis.  nn.  340,  257,  5). 

INTERNAL  PRESENCE  AND  EXTERNAL  PRESENCE. 

I  pray  you  to  observe  why  and  how  we  can  truly  say  that 
it  is  externally,  or  from  without  (extus),  that  the  engineer  or 
driver  of  the  dredge  is  in  the  operation  of  the  machine  ; 
and  to  observe  why  and  how  it  is  impossible  that  we  should 
ever  truly  say  that  he  is  internally,  or  from  within  (intus), 
in  its  operation.  For  the  sake  of  clearness,  let  us  concen- 


116 

trate  our  attention  upon  a  definite  portion  of  that  machine  ; 
let  us  take  the  very  heart  and  centre  of  its  activity,  viz., 
the  furnace  fire,  which  is  really  the  essence  of  all  the  activity 
of  the  dredge  ;  all  the  other  activities  of  the  machine  being 
merely  applications  and  modifications  of  this  primary 
activity.  This  primary  activity  consists  in  the  rushing  to- 
gether of  atoms  of  carbon  in  the  coal,  on  the  one  hand,  and 
atoms  of  oxygen  in  the  atmosphere  on  the  other  hand. 
This  rushing  together  of  atoms  is  what  makes  the  heat ;  and 
the  heat  it  is  that  makes  the  dredge  do  work.  When  these 
atoms  rush  together  they  make  what  I  may  call  a  splash  in 
the  ether  ;  and  since  an  innumerable  number  of  atoms  are 
rushing  together  each  moment,  a  series  of  splashes  in  the 
ether  is  maintained  ;  thus  a  pulse  of  motion  is  maintained 
in  the  ether,  and  this  pulse  is  transferred  to  the  molecules  of 
iron  in  the  boiler,  so  that  these  iron  molecules  take  up  and 
maintain  a  pulsation,  and  these  iron  molecules  beat  against 
the  water  molecules  in  the  boiler  and  shake  them  apart,  thus 
producing  the  gaseous  molecules  which,  being  no  longer 
bound  together  into  water  molecules,  and  being  urged  by 
the  pulsation  of  the  ether,  rush  furiously  forward,  and 
furnish  the  energy  which  moves  the  piston. 

It  is  easy  to  see  that  the  engineer  of  the  dredge,  i.  e.,  the 
will  and  intelligence  of  the  engineer,  is  not  operative 
in  the  rushing  together  of  the  atoms  of  carbon  in  the  coal 
and  oxygen  in  the  atmosphere.  Those  atoms  would  rush 
together  and  beget  heat,  did  the  opportunity  for  them  to  do 
so  come  by  mere  accident ;  that  is  to  say,  did  the  oppor- 
tunity come  without  the  intervention  of  the  engineer  or  of 
any  intelligent  desire  whatever. 

This  rushing  together  of  the  atoms  is  what  constitutes  the 
true  internal  and  essential  of  the  furnace  fire,  and  it  is 
thereby  the  true  internal  and  essential  of  the  physical 
activity  of  the  dredge.  But  this  internal  or  essential  of 
activity  has  also  an  external ;  which  external  consists  in  the 
form  or  manner  in  which  the  activity  is  exerted  ;  as,  for 


117 

instance,  there  may  be  fewer  atoms  rushing  together, 
or  more  atoms  rushing  together.  This  will  be  regulated  by 
the  amount  of  coal  which  is  put  on,  and  by  the  amount  of 
draft  which  is  admitted  to  the  furnace.  This  external  will 
moreover  (and,  indeed,  primarily)  consist  in  the  shape  of 
the  furnace,  the  manner  in  which  the  fire  is  laid,  etc.,  etc. 
In  all  of  this  external  of  the  activity  of  the  furnace  fire,  the 
desire  and  intelligence  of  the  engineer  will  be  found  ;  that 
is  to  say,  his  desire  and  his  intelligence  it  is  that  determine 
what  the  fashion  of  the  furnace  shall  be  ;  how  much  coal 
shall  be  put  on  ;  how  much  draft  shall  be  admitted  ;  how 
the  fire  shall  be  laid  ;  whether  it  shall  burn  to-day  or 
not  before  to-morrow  ;  and  whether  it  shall  be  burning  at 
full  power,  or  whether  the  fire  shall  be  banked.  He  will 
create  the  formal  or  "accidental,"  but  not  the  essential,  of 
the  motive  power.  Thus  and  in  this  fashion  it  is, 
as  you  see,  and  not  in  any  other  fashion — certainly 
not  in  any  mystical,  dreamy  or  idealistic  fashion — that  the 
will  and  intelligence  of  the  engineer  will  be  present  in  the 
furnace  fire.  Now  the  essence  of  anything  is  its  internal  ; 
but  its  form,  its  mode,  its  fashion — or,  as  the  schoolmen 
said,  its  accidents,  make  its  external.  You  may  also  clearly 
observe  why  it  is,  and  how  it  is,  that  we  can  truly  say  that 
the  engineer  "  compels  "  these  forces  of  nature  to  do  their 
work  in  scooping  up  mud  from  the  bottom  of  the  harbour. 
You  can  clearly  see  that  the  engineer  "  compels  "  the  forces 
of  nature  to  this  work,  not  "  from  within  "  or  by  really  orig- 
inating their  activity  each  moment,  but  simply  by  controlling 
and  directing  the  form  and  manner  of  the  manifestation 
thereof  ;  and  you  can  see  that  he  does  this  always  from 
without  (extus),  and  that  the  energy  of  mind  with  which  he 
"  compels  "  them  to  this  task — which  without  this  compul- 
sion they  would  not  perform — is  of  a  totally  different  nature 
from  their  own  energy,  because  his  energy  is  of  a  spiritual 
nature,  and  their  energy  is  of  a  material  nature  ;  and  what 
is  spiritual  and  what  is  material  are  so  unlike  that,  as 


118 

Swedenborg  says,  it  is  utterly  impossible  that  the  two  should 
be  together,  because  they  are  of  a  different  essence.  Much 
more  clearly  is  it  impossible  that  the  spiritual  should  be 
within  the  natural  substance  ;  wherefore  Swedenborg  places 
the  two  external  to  each  other.  But  when  he  speaks  of  liv- 
ing forms,  he  speaks  of  the  spiritual  as  being  interior  to  the 
natural ;  and  the  reason  is  that  then  he  speaks  of  forms,  not 
of  substances  ;  and  the  spiritual  is  what  causes  the  sub- 
stance to  maintain  that  form  ;  now,  what  is  causal  is  said  to 
be  interior  to  what  is  caused  ;  thus,  the  spiritual  is  said,  in 
living  forms,  to  be  interior  to  the  form,  or  interior  to  the 
living  creature.  That  the  form  and  not  the  substance  is 
what  it  is  interior  to,  is  evident  from  this,  viz.,  that  when 
the  spiritual  is  withdrawn  the  substance  does  not  perish, 
but  only  the  form ;  i.  e.,  the  carcass  rots  and  changes  its 
form,  but  without  annihilation  of  substance. 

With  the  mechanism  of  a  tree  or  plant  and  of  its  growth 
and  fructification  by  means  of  two  fires — one  the  material 
forces  of  the  sun  of  this  world,  the  other  the  spiritual  fires 
of  the  sun  of  the  other  world  (all  of  which  is  treated  of  in  the 
Divine  Love  and  Wisdom  at  nn.  157,  158) — the  process  is, 
in  its  way,  just  the  same  as  with  the  mechanism  of  the  steam 
dredge  which  is  run  by  the  joint  operation  of  material  fires 
and  spiritual  fires.  But  I  think  that  the  present  class  of 
Swedenborg's  readers  will  not  be  able  to  see  this  until,  each 
for  himself,  they  shall  have  given  the  subject  some  real 
thought ;  nor  before  they  shall,  by  a  thousand  illustrations 
(to  be  drawn  from  daily  observation  by  each  one  for  himself) 
have  come  clearly  to  perceive  from  the  experiences  of  every- 
day life,  in  harnessing  the  forces  of  nature,  how  it  is  that 
the  spiritual  "  compels  "  the  forces  of  nature  to  complete 
the  ends  of  the  spiritual  and  to  work  them  out  on  a  ma- 
terial plane.  Not  till  they  shall  begin  to  open  their  eyes  and 
look  at  Facts,  will  they  begin  to  abandon  that  dreamy  and 
mystical  interpretation  of  Swedenborg  which  is  the  farthest 
possible  from  Swedenborg's  meaning.  Not  till  then  will 


119 

they  begin  to  see  that  the  spirituality  which  is  to  mark  and 
distinguish  the  New  Jerusalem  consists,  not  in  superstitious 
and  fanciful  interpretations  which  are  at  war  with  common 
sense,  but  in  the  process  of  marking  a  man's  internal  and 
external  conduct  to  conform  to  the  Divine  law  ;  and  that, 
in  brief,  it  consists,  not  in  being  "taken  out  of  the  world,"  i.  e., 
not  in  being  divorced  from  scientific  sense  and  reason,  but 
"  in  being  delivered  from  the  evil,"  i.  e.,  in  purification  of 
motive.  Then,  and  not  till  then,  will  the  so-called  "  collat- 
eral works "  cease  to  consist  at  all  of  abstract  specula- 
tions upon  matters  which  both  the  writers  and  the  readers 
are  perchance  not  well  fitted,  either  by  education  or  by  bent 
of  character,  to  consider ;  and  will  begin  to  consist  first  and 
foremost  in  investigations  into  the  duties  of  life  and  in  ap- 
plications of  the  Ten  Commandments  to  the  plane  of  actual 
conduct  in  each  several  employment.  To  such  studies  when- 
ever a  study  of  the  natural  sciences  shall  begin  to  be  added, 
the  eyes  of  the  blind  shall  be  really  opened,  and  the  ears  of 
the  deaf  shall  really  be  unstopped ;  and  real  spiritual 
waters  shall  break  forth  in  the  wilderness,  and  springs  in  the 
desert. 

CHANGING  SCENERY  IN  THE  WORLD  OF  MINDS. 

With  respect  to  scenery  and  other  objects  described  by 
Swedenborg,  as  seen  in  the  spiritual  world,  I  understand  it 
is  your  opinion,  as  also  the  opinion  of  the  majority  of  his 
readers,  that  these,  appearing  suddenly  as  they  are  de- 
scribed as  doing,  and  disappearing  with  equal  suddenness, 
are  brought  about,  not  by  a  change  in  the  form  of  some  per- 
manent and  indestructible  substance  out  of  which  they  are 
fashioned  at  the  moment  that  they  appear,  and  which  merely 
passes  into  other  and  unseen  forms  when  they  vanish  from 
the  eye,  but  that  they  are  formed  out  of  substance  which, 
as  you  think,  is  brought  into  reality  for  the  purpose 
of  making  them,  and  on  the  occasion  of  making  them  ; 


120 

and  that  when  they  disappear,  their  substance  turns  to 
nothingness  ;  or  else,  as  some  hold,  that  they  have  no  sub- 
stance whatever,  and  that  their  so-called  "  reality  "  consists 
in  their  being  a  seeming  which  answers  to  some  thing  predi- 
cated of  the  Divine.  It  is  your  opinion,  as  I  understand, 
like  the  opinion  of  the  majority  of  Swedenborg's  readers, 
that  it  is  by  sending  forth  ever  some  sphere  of  substance  of 
His  that  the  Divine  Being  produces  these  appearances ;  and 
that  the  substance,  if  any,  that  underlies  their  forms,  is  set 
forth  by  Him  for  the  occasion,  being  in  fact  created  by 
Him  for  the  nonce  ;  or  else  that  there  is  no  substance  in 
them,  and  that  no  substance  is  necessary  in  order  for  them 
to  be  real.  It  is  likewise  your  opinion,  I  understand,  as  it  is 
the  opinion  of  the  same  majority,  that  the  various  sub-crea- 
tions, so  to  speak,  which  Swedenborg  describes  as  taking 
place  about  individual  spiritual  beings,  and  about  societies 
of  spiritual  beings  (which  sub-creations  consist  of  scenery, 
etc.,  etc.,  corresponding  to  the  internal  condition  of  such  in- 
dividuals or  of  such  societies),  are  of  substance  which 
is  created  upon  the  occasion  of  the  appearance  of  such 
scenery,  and  which  turns  into  nothing  when  the  scenery  dis- 
appears ;  or  else  are  not  of  any  substance  whatever ;  a 
consonance  in  form  with  Divine  ideals  being,  for  all  your 
purposes,  a  substantiality  quite  sufficient  for  them. 


SUBSTANCE  is  UNCKEATABLE,  BUT  CAN  BE  FINITED. 

It  is  probably  useless  to  remind  you,  or  to  remind  the 
majority,  that  to  say  that  any  substance  can  be  created,  is 
in  terms  a  contradiction.  It  is  nevertheless  true  that 
Omnipotence  itself  cannot  create  substance,  that  is  to  say, 
cannot  make  something  out  of  nothing  ;  substance,  in  plain 
language,  being  that  which  is  something  at  bottom.  That 
God  did  not,  and  could  not  create,  any  substance  out 
of  nothing,  is  one  of  Swedenborg's  first  principles  ;  and  he 


121 

attacks  in  a  lively  manner  the  common  theological  fallacy 
in  that  behalf.  Substance  is  uncreatable.  When  we  speak 
of  any  substance  having  been  created,  we  mean  merely  that 
such  substance  has  been  finited  ;  we  mean  that  substance 
which  had  been  in  the  Infinite  Being,  and  was  then  partak- 
ing of  His  quality  of  infinity,  has  been  separated  from  the 
Infinite  Being,  and  deprived  of  any  infinite  quality,  and  been 
caused  to  be  finite.  Substance  which  thus  has  been  finited 
can  never  return  into  God  ;  to  say  that  it  can  return  would 
be  saying  that  the  finite  can  turn  into  the  Infinite.  Nor 
can  substance  which  has  been  finited  from  the  Infinite,  ever 
turn  to  nothing  ;  for  could  it  so  turn,  it  must  originally, 
whilst  in  the  Infinite  Being,  have  been  really  nothing  there. 
To  admit  that  substance  which  had  been  in  the  Infinite  can 
turn  to  nothing,  would  be  denying  God  Himself,  because  it 
would  be  declaring  His  Infinite  substance  to  be  nothing. 
Therefore,  contrary  to  your  opinion,  the  changes  of  scenery, 
and  the  appearance  and  disappearance  of  objects  in  the 
spiritual  world — all  of  which  Swedenborg  calls  "  creations  " 
in  the  spiritual  world — are  by  no  means  a  creating  of 
substance  ;  yet  by  no  means  are  they  void  of  substance  ;  but 
they  are  changes  of  form  in  substances  which  long  before 
had  been  finited  and  which,  when  those  particular  forms 
of  scenery,  etc.,  was  "created, ""were  merely  assuming  new 
forms  ;  were  merely  passing — just  as  substances  in  this 
world  are  well  known  to  pass — out  of  states  in  which 
the  substance  is  invisible  to  the  senses,  into  states  in  which 
the  substance  becomes  visible  to  the  senses  ;  and  may 
swiftly  pass  back,  like  substances  in  this  world  again,  out 
of  states  in  which  their  substance  is  visible  to  the  senses, 
into  states  in  which  their  substance  will  become  invisible. 

FORMATION  BY  DISCRETE  DEGREES. 

But  why  and  how  there  exist  in  the  worlds,  both  spiritual 
and  natural,  these  constantly  recurring  changes  of  invisible 


122 

substance  into  forms  whose  substance  then  becomes  visible, 
and  these  constantly  recurring  changes  of  forms  whose  sub- 
stance is  visible  into  substance  invisible,  cannot  be  well 
understood  by  any  one  until  he  becomes  acquainted  with  the 
doctrine  of  discrete  degrees ;  and  with  this  doctrine  almost 
none  of  Swedenborg's  readers  are  as  yet  acquainted,  al- 
though they  are  familiar  with  many  words  relating  to  the 
subject  of  discrete  degrees. 

The  three  stages  of  matter,  viz.,  gaseous,  liquid  and  solid, 
are  in  discrete  degrees  ;  posterior  degrees  are  formed  from 
prior  degrees  by  composition  and  re-composition;  several 
units  of  a  prime  degree  compose  one  unit  of  an  after  or  poste- 
rior degree,  and  several  units  of  a  posterior  degree  compose 
one  unit  of  an  aftermost  or  postreme  degree.  If  a  solid  par- 
ticle be  shaken  apart  by  the  vibrations  of  the  ethereal  atmo- 
sphere, its  substance  separates  into  finer  particles  which  are 
known  as  liquid  particles ;  and  if  one  of  these  liquid  par- 
ticles be  shaken  to  pieces  by  the  vibrations  of  the  ethereal 
atmosphere,  the  pieces  into  which  it  is  shaken  are  particles 
known  as  gaseous.  Solids  are  called  by  Swedenborg  "  ulti- 
mate "  substances ;  and  are  said  to  belong  to  the  ultimate  or 
postreme  degree;  whereas  liquid  particles  belong  to  an 
earlier  or  prior  degree ;  and  gaseous  particles  belong  to  an 
earliest  or  prime  degree. 

The  heat-pulsation  of  the  ether  tends  to  drive  the  particles 
asunder,  because  it  gives  them  motion,  or  tends  to  increase 
such  motion  as  they  already  have  ;  and  tends  to  drive  them 
asunder  because,  being  thus  set  in  motion  (or  rather  in  more 
violent  motion),  they  hurtle  against  each  other  with  such 
force  as  to  overcome  their  attraction  for  each  other ;  hence 
comes  the  kinetic  motion  of  all  gases. 

Reversing  the  means  whereby  solid  particles  are  converted 
into  liquid  particles,  and  liquid  particles  into  gaseous  parti- 
cles— a  process  which  is  effected  by  heat  pulsations — and 
applying  the  opposite  process,  we  find  as  follows ; — If  gase- 
ous particles  be  compressed  and  some  of  the  heat-motion 


123 

which  they  possess  be  abstracted,  the  bringing  of  them 
closer  together  increases  (in  the  ratio  of  the  square)  their  at- 
traction. If  at  the  same  time  the  force  which  drove  them 
asunder  is  withdrawn,  they  will  group  or  clot  themselves  into 
crowds  whose  individual  members  adhere  to  each  other  by 
attraction  and  form  a  unit  as  it  were ;  such  a  unit  is  a  liquid 
particle,  and  each  such  liquid  particle  retains  some  motion 
in  the  form  of  heat,  which  motion  keeps  it  clear  and  free  from 
other  liquid  particles.  Destroy  still  further  the  heat-motion 
of  each  of  these  clots,  and  they  will,  by  virtue  of  attraction 
for  each  other,  clot  themselves  again  together,  forming  still 
larger  units  which  are  solid  particles.  This  formation  of 
liquid  particles  from  gaseous  particles,  and  of  solid  particles 
from  liquid  particles,  is  a  formation  by  discrete  or  separate 
degrees ;  and  the  passage  from  one  degree  to  another  is  not 
gradual  or  continuous,  but  with  a  break  and  by  means  of  a 
leap  or  bound.  The  laws  of  heat  applying  to  these  discrete 
degrees  are  most  interesting ;  but  here  is  not  the  place  to 
explain  them.  On  the  other  hand,  solid  particles  may  also 
in  the  same  manner  clot  or  unite  together,  and  may  do  this 
so  far  as  to  become  a  clot  large  enough  to  be  visible;  but 
such  clotting  or  unition  does  not  proceed  by  a  discrete  de- 
gree ;  there  is  no  essential  difference  between  a  group  of  a 
thousand  solid  particles  and  a  group  of  a  hundred  million ; 
but  there  is  an  essential  difference  between  a  liquid  particle 
and  a  solid  particle,  and  between  a  liquid  particle  and  a 
gaseous  particle.  Increment  of  solids  by  the  clotting  together 
of  their  particles,  is  increment,  not  by  a  discrete  degree,  but 
by  a  degree  unbroken  by  chasm,  by  a  degree  without  a  leap ; 
thus  by  a  degree  called  "  continuous." 


HEAT-PULSATIONS  CAUSE  CHANGE  or  DEGREE. 

In  the   spiritual   world,  as  in  the    natural,   liquids    are 
formed   thus  from   atmospheres,  and   solids   from   liquids. 


124 

In  that  world,  as  in  this,  they  are  formed  by  ultimations 
through  heat-abstraction.  In  that  world,  as  in  this,  it  is  by 
heat-pulsations  that  liquids  are  formed  from  solids,  and 
atmospheres  or  gases  from  liquids.  In  that  world,  as  in  this, 
only  the  solid  and  liquid  stages  of  substance  are,  for  the 
most  part,  capable  of  reflecting  ethereal  pulsation  in  such 
manner  as  to  produce  an  image  in  the  eye.  In  that  world, 
as  in  this,  the  atmospheric  stage  of  substance  is  one  in  which 
most  substances  are  invisible.  But  in  that  world,  all  sub- 
stance is  swiftly  or  slowly  transmutable  from  one  degree 
into  another  wholly  according  to  circumstances ;  whereas  in 
this  world  regular  times  govern  the  rate  of  transmutation  ; 
so  that  with  regular  forces  here,  the  rate  of  transformation 
here  is  regular.  In  the  other  world  indeed,  this  last  is 
equally  the  case;  but  there  the  force  is  almost  infinitely 
variable,  whereas  here  the  force  varies  only  in  a  finite  man- 
ner. Heat-pulsation  in  either  world,  conveyed  along  the 
ether-atmosphere,  is  the  means  of  effecting  changes. 

The  source  of  heat  in  the  natural  world,  whence  all  heat- 
pulsation  here,  is  a  sphere  of  substance  in  intense  agitation, 
called  the  sun;  thence  comes  all  heat-power;  but  much 
power  from  thence  has  been  stored  up  for  ages  in  substances 
on  earth. 

The  source  of  heat  in  the  spiritual  world,  whence  all  heat- 
pulsation  there,  is  a  sphere  of  substance  in  intense  agitation, 
called  the  spiritual  Sun ;  thence  all  hea-tpower,  and  thence, 
by  admitting  or  by  withdrawing  that  power  come  all 
changes  of  form  there,  and  often  these  changes  are  accom- 
panied with  disappearance  of  the  object  previously  seen. 
But  the  ethereal  atmosphere  of  the  spiritual  world  is  capable 
of  an  almost  infinite  variety  and  power  of  vibration,  as 
compared  with  the  ethereal  atmosphere  of  this  world.  The 
marvels  of  photography,  all  produced  through  light-waves, 
are  clod-like  things  compared  with  the  things  effected  by 
the  light-waves  there. 


125 
SUB-CREATIONS. 

Moreover  there  every  spirit  makes  a  petty  sun  about  him 
consisting  of  a  sphere  of  substances  which  have  been  exhaled 
from  his  body ;  just  as  the  spiritual  Sun  consists  of  sub- 
stances which  have  been  exhaled  from  God's  Body ;  and 
through  each  petty  sun,  as  through  the  Grand  Sun,  beats  a 
continuous  pulsation  derived  from  the  invisible  vital  move- 
ments of  the  substances  in  the  living  man  within.  These 
pulsations,  by  the  laws  of  action  and  reaction,  are  propa- 
gated ever  outward,  radiating  through  the  ethereal  atmos- 
phere, and  affect  the  grossest  atmospheres,  and  thereby  pro- 
duce a  presence  which  is  an  image  formed  by  a  motion 
similar  to  the  motion  prevailing  at  the  central  source.  Just 
as  on  earth  an  object  is  made  present  in  image,  on  the  screen 
of  a  photographic  camera,  so  is  presence  and  imagery  pro- 
duced in  the  world  of  Mind.  But  such  image  there  may  be 
either  in  the  spirit's  own  true  form,  the  human ;  or  it  may  be 
in  a  lower  form,  which  is  the  animal  form ;  or  in  a  still  lower 
one,  which  is  the  vegetable  form.  If  the  image  is  produced 
in  "  prior  "  substance,  where  the  heat  vibration  is  more 
active  and  living,  the  image  is  an  animated  one,  i.  e.y  an 
animal.  If  the  image  is  produced  in  "  ultimate  "  substance 
there — which  is  solid  there  as  here,  and  which  in  general  is 
the  soil  there — the  image  is  less  animate,  and  may  be  in  a 
vegetable  form.  Yet  in  all  cases  it  is  an  image ;  it  may 
even  be  produced  in  mineral  form.  But  as  for  substance 
being  created  on  the  nonce  there, — did  not  people  formerly 
think  the  substance  of  trees  was  taken  from  the  earth  1  And 
had  they  earlier  known  that  not  one-twentieth  of  the  sub- 
stance comes  from  thence,  would  they  not  have  sworn  that 
the  substance  of  all  growing  trees  is  created  for  the  occasion 
and  out  of  nothing ;  and  that  the  substance  of  all  burning 
wood  passes  into  nothing,  or  else  into  Spirit,  when  it  burns  ? 
And,  by  the  way,  Mr-  Sewall,  if  I  mistake  not,  suggests  no  very 
very  different  alternative  at  pp.  70,  71,  of  his  work  on  Meta- 


126 

physics.  At  present  we  know  that  the  chief  part  of  the 
substance  in  trees  is  made  out  of  the  invisible  atmosphere, 
and  to  that  atmosphere  eventually  returns.  Slow  in  this 
world  is  the  change ;  in  the  other  world  it  is  instantaneous. 
Always  from  sun-centres  does  the  change  proceed.  Only 
it  is  to  be  remembered  that  the  agitation  in  that  world 
at  the  centre  is  in  each  case  from  the  Lord  Himself ;  there- 
fore the  vision  of  Him  wheels  ever  on  pivot  with  any  angel 
as  the  angel  wheels  his  body  ;  from  thence  come  all  heat- 
pulsations  ;  and  thence,  by  means  of  these  pulsations,  are 
effected  all  changes  in  degree  of  substance,  viz.,  changes 
from  solids  into  fluids,  and  even  into  invisible  atmospheres, 
and  from  invisible  atmospheres  into  visible  fluids  and  visible 
solids  ;  and  from  the  same  source,  by  the  plastic  or  mould- 
ing powers  inherent  in  the  vibratory  forces  which  are  sup- 
plied to  the  spiritual  ether,  come  all  the  visible  changes  in 
the  forms  of  objects  visible  in  the  spiritual  world.  The 
case  is  the  same  in  this  world  ;  only  here  the  vibratory 
powers  of  the  natural  ether,  propagated  from  the  natural 
sun,  take  effect  principally  upon  surfaces  ;  whereas  in  the 
other  world  they  take  effect  throughout,  that  is  to  say,  take 
effect  in  cubical  instead  of  merely  superficial  dimension.  In 
this  world  the  light-waves  produce  such  images  as  are 
photographs  of  trees,  houses,  etc.  ;  in  the  other  world 
the  light-waves  produce  such  images  as  are  real  trees, 
real  houses,  etc.  In  either  world,  the  production  is  effected 
by  means  of  undulations  propagated,  through  atmospheres, 
from  active  centres  ;  these  atmospheres  stretch,  as  it  were, 
the  sphere  of  an  object  so  that  it  extends  far  and  near.  Not 
that  the  sphere  of  substances  exhaling  from  an  object  is 
thus  stretched  or  expanded,  but  the  sphere  of  undulation  or 
impulse  propagated  from  an  object  is  thus  stretched  or  ex- 
panded, in  manner  such  that  the  activities  going  on  at  the 
surface  of  an  object  are  propagated  in  wave  forms.  This  is 
the  case  with  objects  that  are  audible,  i.  e.9  objects  which 
are  in  vibration  sufficiently  rapid  (and  not  too  rapid)  to  be 


127 

sensed  by  the  ear  ;  these  pulses  are,  by  means  of  the  aerial 
atmosphere,  transported  to  a  great  distance,  and  arouse  at 
a  great  distance  a  similar  excitation  in  objects  on  which 
they  strike.  It  is  likewise  the  case  with  objects  visible,  i.  e.9 
objects  whose  surface  particles  (particles  of  extreme  fineness 
and  lying  so  loose  that  they  are  like  a  sphere  encompassing 
the  object)  are  in  vibration — a  vibration  induced  by  agita- 
tions propagated  from  the  sun  or  other  source  of  illumina- 
tion— and  which  are  in  vibration  sufficiently  rapid  (and  not 
too  rapid)  to  be  sensed  by  the  eye.  The  pulses  of  these 
substances  are,  by  means  of  the  ethereal  atmosphere,  trans- 
ported to  immense  distances  ;  and  at  immense  distances 
they  arouse  a  similar  excitation  in  objects  on  which  they 
strike.  In  similar  manner  to  this  are  sight  and  hearing  and 
presence  effected  in  the  spiritual  world.  In  an  infinite  way 
the  sight  and  voice  and  presence  of  the  Lord  are  effected  ; 
and,  in  a  finite  way,  the  sight  and  voice  and  presence  of 
spirits  and  angels. 


THE  NATURE  OF  GOD'S  PRESENCE. 

But  I  know  that  you,  like  the  majority,  think  that  the 
Lord's  living  Substance  and  own  proper  Self  lies  within 
each  angel's  substance,  and  makes  up  the  angel's  substance, 
and  that  this  is  the  reason  why  the  glowing  Sphere  which 
surrounds  the  Lord  is  seen  ever  in  front  by  an  angel,  to 
what  quarter  so  ever  the  angel  turn  himself.  It  is  not  true, 
however,  that  the  Lord's  substance  lies  within  the  angel's 
substance.  The  angel's  substance  is  angelic,  and  only 
angelic,  to  its  inmost ;  and  in  no  portion  is  it  Divine  ;  to  its 
inmost  it  is  mere  dead  substance,  nor  does  any  divine  sub- 
stance lie  within  it.  What  does  lie  within  the  angel,  and 
what  you  mistake  for  Divine  Substance  lying  within  him,  is 
an  inmost  activity,  communicated  steadily  from  the  Lord, 
through  impulses  of  the  spiritual  ether,  to  the  angel's  in- 


128 

most  substance  ;  and  the  angel,  when  he  feels  the  Lord's 
original  activity  from  which  the  activity  in  himself  is  de- 
rived, perceives  the  Lord  and  perceives  Him  in  front,  for 
from  in  front  the  activity  flows  into  him,  unless  he  be  a 
devil  and  turn  his  back  on  God — in  which  case  it  flows  into 
him  from  behind  and  not  from  in  front.  This  reason,  and 
not  your  reason,  is  the  reason  why  the  sun  of  the  spiritual 
world  wheels,  as  it  were,  with  the  angels,  and  is  ever  seen 
by  them  in  front,  however  they  turn  their  bodies.  The  case 
herein  is  just  as  in  the  natural  world,  whose  laws  are  the 
same  as  those  of  the  spiritual  world.  Who  does  not  now 
know  that  that  of  which  the  sense  of  sight  takes 
cognizance  is  never  substance,  but  is  ever  and 
solely  the  agitation  of  substances  ?  For  which  reason 
it  is  impossible  to  see  any  substance  in  the  dark ; 
because  then  there  is  no  agitation  of  the  surface  of  that  sub- 
stance, and  yet  agitation  is  all  that  the  eye  can  perceive ;  for 
only  by  agitation  can  be  produced  the  ether- waves  which 
agitate  the  nerve  surface  of  the  eye  into  a  quivering, 
which  quivering  does  thus,  with  the  person  seeing,  produce 
the  image  of  the  object  which  he  is  said  to  "  see."  These 
two,  viz.,  (a),  Force  to  produce,  through  ethereal  pulsations,  an 
image,  and  (b\  an  image  produced,  are  the  two  elements  and 
factors  of  Presence  as  effected  by  the  sense  of  sight.  It  is 
the  same  with  Presence  as  effected  by  the  sense  of  hearing  ; 
only,  in  hearing,  the  pulsations  are  of  a  coarser  atmosphere, 
and  the  image  is  a  quivering  of  coarser  (discretely  coarser) 
particles.  It  is  the  same  with  Presence  as  effected  by  the 
senses  of  touch,  taste  and  smell ;  in  all  of  which  there  must 
be  the  Force — absolute  or  relative — to  produce  an  image  on  a 
sentient  surface ;  and  there  must  be  an  image  produced. 
But  in  touch,  taste  and  smell,  there  is  an  image  stamped  up- 
on a  motionless  surface,  instead  of  an  image  maintained  in  a 
quivering  surface.  Nay,  with  things  not  sentient  even, 
the  Presence  of  one  thing  with  another  consists,  and 
consists  only,  in  Force  and  Image.  The  presence  of  one 


129 

brick  with  another  brick  that  lies  next  under  it  in  a 
house-wall,  is  the  presence  of  a  Force  from  the  former 
exerted  upon  the  latter,  and  a  consequent  image  or  sort 
of  imprint  of  the  former  upon  the  latter.  Who  cannot  see 
that  were  Presence  a  presence  of  the  substance  of  one  thing 
with  the  substance  of  another,  there  could  be  no  presence 
of  one  thing  with  another  ;  for  then  they  must  either 
occupy  the  same  space  at  the  same  time,  which  is  impos- 
sible, or  must  be  one  substance  instead  of  being  two  sub- 
stances ?  From  these  considerations  it  can  be  seen  what 
God's  Omnipresence  is,  viz.,  that  it  is  an  exertion  of  Force 
upon  every  living  thing,  with  a  conscious  or  unconscious 
reproduction  of  Image.  Do  not  think  that  God's  sub- 
stance is  within  angel's  substance  when  the  angel  sees 
His  sphere.  What  the  angel  perceives  is  only  the  Lord's 
activity  exerted  upon  him.  Within  him  there  is  no  more  of 
the  Divine  Substance  than  there  is  of  a  human  voice  within 
the  hill  from  whose  side  that  voice  is  echoed  ;  and  no  more 
than  there  is  of  the  sun's  body  within  any  object  upon 
which  the  explosions  in  the  sun  hurl  light- waves,  thereby 
causing  that  object  to  reflect  those  waves,  and  thereby  mak- 
ing the  object  visible.  But  it  is  all  useless  to  say  these 
things  to  the  many.  Spiritual  truths  cannot  be  seen  save 
in  natural  truths,  and  these  latter  the  many  have  not  as  yet. 
And  I  do  not  think  that  a  man  can  see  any  of  the 
things  which  (in  a  very  poor  way,  I  admit)  I  have  described, 
unless  he  be  a  person  so  constituted  as  that,  from  the  heart, 
and  not  from  the  mind  only  or  from  the  lips  only,  he  be- 
lieves in  the  very  and  essential  Man-shape  of  the  Deity. 
The  reason  is,  that  all  true  thinking  is  thinking  according  to 
the  form  or  construction  of  heaven,  and  this  form  or  con- 
struction is  that  of  a  man;  and  the  ultimate  of  a  man,  ideally, 
is  the  man-shape.  Hence  it  is  that  they  who  do  not  think 
of  the  Deity  as  verily  of  man-shape  cannot  pass  into 
heaven  (Apoc.  Exp.,  no.  1109,  cont.)  ;  by  which  is 
at  the  same  time  meant  that  they  have  not  in  them  so 


130 

much  as  the  thieshold  of  heavenly  thought,  which  threshold 
is  the  ultimate  of  heavenly  thought ;  for  heavenly  thought 
is  man-shaped,  and  has  this  shape  for  ultimate.  I  say 
that  they  have  not  so  much  as  the  threshold  of  heavenly 
thought ;  and  this  is  true,  though  it  sounds  mystical :  neverthe- 
less it  is  not  mystical ;  for  entering  heaven  is  not  entering 
into  a  place  essentially,  but  it  is  essentially  entering  into  a 
state ;  and  this  state  has  its  threshold  as  well  as  its  pene- 
tralia, and  if  the  outer  walls  and  the  threshold  are  destroyed 
the  penetralia  perish  also.  Moreover,  all  true  thought  is  a 
Divine  formation,  and  all  divine  formation  proceeds  from 
first  principles  to  ultimates,  and  stops  never  short  of  ulti- 
mates, and  in  ultimates  are  its  divinity,  its  strength  and 
its  persistence.  The  ultimate  of  the  thought  of  God 
is  the  thought  of  Him  as  of  man-shape:  this  thought, 
when  it  proceeds  from  love,  is  indeed  "the  Son  of  the 
Highest ; "  for  the  Highest  in  a  man  is  Love  or  Affection  ; 
and  when  a  man,  from  love,  thinks  of  God  as  of  man-shape, 
such  thought  in  him  is  the  offspring  of  Love.  It  is  other- 
wise with  the  first  material  investiture  or  embodiment 
of  that  thought ;  the  first  embodiment  of  that  thought  gets 
its  outward  substance  merely  from  the  sensuous  impressions 
of  childhood :  in  this  latter  respect  that  thought  is  but  as 
"  the  Son  of  Mary ; "  yet  only  the  enemy  will  crucify  or  slay 
it ;  moreover  only  the  enemy  will  declare  such  a  thought  to 
be  a  son  of  a  carpenter  or  joiner,  i.  e.,  to  be  the  product  of 
mere  human  constructive  intelligence,  or  a  putting  together 
of  this  and  that  by  men  in  their  childhood  or  by  races  in 
their  childhood.  In  the  thought  of  God  as  of  man-shape 
and  in  the  doctrine  of  Kepentance,  lie  the  necessary  ultimates 
of  all  spiritual  wisdom.  They  are  the  corner  stone  of  the  spir- 
itual Temple,  and  they  are  what  the  builders  reject,  because 
the  builders  prefer  an  undefined  God  to  the  Man-God,  and 
prefer  a  clap-trap  Benevolence  to  a  genuine  Charity  that  has 
been  evolved  through  Repentance.  See  the  Apocalypse  Ex- 


131 

plained,  nn.  1115,  1116,  continuations ;  also  n.   1124,   con- 
tinuation, at  end. 

Swedenborg  makes  these  two  doctrines  to  be  the  all  in  all 
of  the  Church :  yet  although  the  so-called  "  collateral  works  " 
are  hundreds  in  number,  I  know  not  one  of  them  whose  sub- 
ject, wholly  or  in  part,  is  either  ;  and  never  but  once  have  I 
heard  from  a  Swedenborgian  pulpit  a  sermon  professing  to 
teach  either.  That  such  as  this  reception  would  be  the  re- 
ception of  his  doctrines,  viz.,  that  they  would  be  essentially 
rejected,  Swedenborg  foresaw  and  foretold ;  but  his  follow- 
ers mostly  suppose  that  in  thus  speaking  he  was  speaking 
not  of  themselves,  but  of  outsiders ;  yet  outsiders  cannot  be 
said  to  receive  them  or  to  reject  them,  forasmuch  as  they  do 
not  even  examine  them.  Verily,  it  is  nowhere  but  in  the 
house  of  its  friends  that  Truth  can  be  wounded :  the  reason 
is,  that  no  others  come  nigh  it,  or  come  to  a  fit  reach  for 
stabbing  it. 

Since  I  shall  print  this  letter,  I  warn  the  reader  once  more 
to  take  nothing  herein  but  as  he  shall  find  it  proved.  As 
for  the  criticisms  I  have  made  of  the  writings  of  Sweden- 
borg's  followers,  I  speak  of  some,  indeed  of  many,  but  not 
of  all.  In  all  of  them,  as  I  think,  can  be  found  most  excel- 
lent thoughts — thoughts  which  cannot  be  likened  to  cas- 
tles in  the  air  or  to  birds  of  paradise,  but  which  are  sound 
practical  thoughts  relative  to  conduct.  Such  thoughts, 
rather  than  thoughts  philosophical,  are  Divine. 
Dear  Sir,  I  am  very  truly  yours, 


At  the  outset  I  assumed  to  treat  of  the  relative  advantage 
of  tubs  with  bottoms,  and  of  tubs  without. 

I  have  omitted,  however,  to  treat  specifically  of  the  advan- 
tages of  the  latter,  since  these  will  be  self-evident  when  we 


132 

consider  the  disadvantages  of  the  former.  The  use  of  tubs  is 
to  hold  various  liquids,  and  to  carry  liquids  from  one  point  to 
another.  It  is  evident  that  if  anything  that  is  not  merely 
airy  be  put  into  a  tub  with  a  bottom,  such  a  tub  will  there- 
upon become  heavier  and  more  difficult  of  carriage.  But 
however  much  be  put  into  a  tub  without  a  bottom,  the  tub 
and  whatever  may  be  within  it,  remains  still  light  and  easy 
of  carriage.  Idealism  is  such  a  vessel.  Idealism  dissolves 
all  problems,  as  by  a  Greater  Menstruum  and  Universal 
Solvent.  There  is  no  equation  which  cannot  be  reduced  to 
simplicity  itself  by  a  skillful  introduction  of  a  zero.  I  my- 
self have  often  beheld  a  couple  of  self-styled  Swedenborgians 
put  half  the  facts  of  modern  science  into  one  of  these  vessels, 
and  then  have  seen  them,  though  only  half -educated  persons, 
raise  it  from  the  earth  with  perfect  ease  and  bear  it  aloft  to 
a  vast  height.  On  the  other  hand,  the  truths  belonging  to 
the  region  of  the  five  senses,  if  borne  in  a  mind  possessing  a 
firm  and  reactive  basis,  are  very  heavy  and  difficult  to  lift, 
and  only  with  painstaking  and  sustained  exertion  can  be 
raised  toward  the  empyrean. 


133 


[The  following  is  the  memorial  upon  which  was 
rendered  the  Keport  of  the  Council  of  Swedenborgian 
Ministers  to  the  Swedenborgian  Convention  at  Boston 
in  1889,  and  is  the  Report  mentioned  at  p.  35  of  the 
foregoing  letter.] 

A  MEMORIAL  TO   THE    GENERAL    CONVENTION  OP  THE  NEW 
JERUSALEM  IN  THE   UNITED   STATES. 

I  humbly  beg  that  your  body  may  be  pleased  to  ap- 
point a  committee  to  be  composed  of  qualified  persons 
who  can  conveniently  meet  together  for  conference,  of 
which  the  duty  shall  be  to  report  to  your  body,  at  its 
next  assembling,  upon  the  following  subject,  namely  : 

The  distinction  to  be  drawn  or  not  to  be  drawn  be- 
tween, on  the  one  hand,  the  processes  of  the  creation  of 
substances  and  matters,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
communication  of  life. 

I  am  informed  upon  good  authority  that  upon  this 
point  exists  a  difference  of  opinion  ;  and  that  the  larger 
number  of  the  students  of  our  illuminated  author  hold 
the  belief  that  the  process  of  creation,  like  the  process 
of  life-giving,  is  a  constantly  continued  process  ;  that 
it  extends  to  all  matter  ;  that  by  virtue  thereof,  and 
thereof  only,  all  matter  has  actuality  or  reality  ;  that 


134 

all  matter  is  inwardly  alive,  and  is  made  alive  by  this 
process,  even  though  the  matter  is  not  visibly  in  an 
organized  form ;  and  that  the  stream  of  life  which 
others  believe  to  be  a  transfer  of  motion  only  (consid- 
ered to  enliven  with  a  spiritual  quickening  certain  of 
the  substances  and  matters  which  have  already  been 
brought  into  existence),  is  in  fact  a  constant  transfer  of 
substance  from  the  Divine,  which  substance  so  trans- 
ferred maintains  the  actuality  of  all  things  visible.  The 
smaller  number  of  Swedenborg's  students  (and  accord- 
ing to  the  best  authorities  it  would  seem  to  be  a  very 
small  number)  affirm  that  the  two  processes  are  abso- 
lutely distinct  ;  the  process  of  creation  having  been,  as 
they  conceive,  already  long  ago  completely  achieved, 
and  the  process  of  life-giving  being  perpetual.  The 
difference  of  belief,  as  I  understand  it,  is  wholly  analo- 
gous to  the  difference  of  belief  which  formerly  existed 
among  scientific  persons  with  regard  to  the  nature  of 
that  influx  of  light  from  the  sun  which  produces  color  ; 
one  school  holding  that  the  colors  are  deposits  of  sub- 
stance transported  from  the  sun  along  the  ether ;  but 
the  other  school  holding  that  color  is  a  mere  vibration 
induced  by  the  vibrations  of  the  ether,  which  vibrations 
are  caused  by  activity  in  the  solar  body,  and  which  are 
thence  communicated  through  the  ether-ocean  to  terres- 
trial objects.  This  difference  of  belief  is  also,  as  I  under- 
stand, like  a  difference  of  opinion  which  may  exist  with 
regard  to  the  nature  of  great  waves,  or  of  a  heavy 
swell  at  sea  ;  such  swell  being,  in  one  man's  opinion, 
the  actual  transfer  forward  of  a  mass  of  water  pro- 
gressing bodily  at  the  rate  of  several  miles  an  hour ; 
and,  in  another  man's  opinion,  being  a  forward  move- 
ment of  form  or  figure  only,  produced  by  a  mere  up- 
ward and  downward  motion  of  particles  of  water  ;  the 


135 

seeming  advance  being  a  deceit  of  the  eye  which  inter- 
prets the  phenomenon  to  be  a  very  onset  of  the  mass. 

Since  this  difference  is  radical,  and  since  it  immedi- 
ately concerns  the  subject  of  God's  presence  in  the 
world,  and  since  it  may  in  many  minds  create  the  differ- 
ence between  pantheism  and  belief  in  God,  I  venture  to 
hope  that  your  body  may  take  a  step  in  aid  of  the 
solution  of  this  difference.  The  age  of  reprobation  in 
matters  of  religious  opinion  is  doubtless  nearly  past ; 
but  the  age  of  sincere  and  friendly  investigation  has 
almost  or  even  quite  begun. 

In  presenting  this  my  petition  or  memorial,  I  have  en- 
deavored to  save  time  to  your  body  by  stating  directly 
the  object  for  which  I  pray ,  and  I  trust  that  all  proper 
expressions  of  my  diffidence  in  asking  your  attention  to 
this  exceedingly  important  difference  of  belief  may  be 
supplied  between  the  lines.  . 


EEPORT  OF  THE    COUNCIL    OF   MINISTERS. 

[Into  this  report  are  now  interjected  a  few  comments 
by  the  author  of  this  little  book,  they  being  placed 
in  brackets  in  order  to  distinguish  them  from  the  text.] 

The  Council  of  Ministers  to  which  was  referred  the  memorial 

of  Mr. respectfully  report  that  it  appears  to  them  to  be 

hardly  within  the  province  of  the  Convention  to  pronounce  judg- 
ment upon  particular  points  of  doctrine,  except  as  they  relate  to 
matters  on  which  it  must  act  as  a  body,  inasmuch  as  doctrines  are 
not  settled  by  Councils  (T.  C.  R.  489),  but  are  to  be  learned  by  study 
and  from  individual  interpretation ;  yet  the  memorial  having  been 
received  and  referred  to  the  Council,  they  have  committed  it  to  a 
sub-committee  whose  report  has  been  received  and  approved,  and  is 
respectfully  submitted  as  that  of  the  Council : 


136 

The  doctrinal  question  which  the  memorial  asks  to 
have  answered  is, —  "The  distinction  to  be  drawn,  or 
not  to  be  drawn,  between — 1.  The  processes  of  the  crea- 
tion of  substances  and  matters  and  their  respective  for- 
mation by  successive  composition  ;  and  2.  The  commu- 
nication of  life." 

There  can  be  no  answer  to  this  question  but  such  as 
is  revealed  in  the  Heavenly  Doctrines ;  and  what  the 
doctrines  teach  on  the  subject,  as  interpreted  by  their 
own  light,  is  the  matter  to  be  considered. 

The  memorial  represents  that  "  a  very  small  number 
affirm  that  the  two  processes  "  of  creation  and  the  com- 
munication of  life,  "  are  absolutely  distinct, — the  process 
of  creation  having  been  long  ago  completely  achieved, 
and  the  process  of  life-giving  being  perpetual." 

In  order  more  full}*  and  exactly  to  meet  the  question 
of  the  memorial,  it  seems  necessary  to  make  some  refer- 
ence to  other  communications  of  the  memorialist,  in 
which  his  views  are  more  distinctly  defined,  and  reasons 
for  them  attempted,  and  some  general  reference  to  the 
writings  made  which  is  supposed  to  sustain  them.  But 
it  will  not  be  practicable  or  necessary  to  quote  from 
these  very  lengthy  communications  than  so  much  as 
will  give  the  essential  and  fundamental  principles  of  the 
views  involved  in  the  memorial.  The  following  quota- 
tions will  suffice.  He  says : 

Swedenborg  teaches  that  the  one  only  living  Substance 
did  create  from  His  own  living  Substance  certain  dead  sub- 
stance; and  created  this  substance  in  various  degrees  of 
being,  of  which  dead  substance  so  created  that  which  he 
calls  the  spiritual  is  the  finest,  and  that  which  he  calls  mat- 
ter is  the  grossest,  and  various  degrees  of  dead  substance 
exist  between  these  two  extremes  of  dead  substance.  *  *  * 
All  these  things — as  to  the  manufacture  of  substance — He 


137 

did,  and  got  done  with  doing ;  and  of  this  act  of  manufac- 
ture Swedenborg  always  speaks  in  the  perfect  and  pluper- 
fect tenses — sometimes,  indeed,  in  the  passive  voice,  but  al- 
ways unmistakably  in  the  tense  or  tenses  denoting  a  perfectly 
completed  act.  Thus  his  creatus  est  is  always  indicative  of 
an  act  of  creating  which  had  been  achieved,  and  about  which 
God  is  no  longer  engaged.  *  *  * 

According  to  Swedenborg,  there  have  been,  with  respect 
to  every  living  creature,  two  processes  necessary,  which  two 
processes  are  distinctly  to  be  severed.  The  first  is  the  pro- 
cess of  creating  some  substance  which  shall  be  utterly  dead, 
and  which  shall  still  be  entirely  real,  and  which  shall  be 
dead  by  virtue  of  its  being  entirely  independent  of  Deity.  If  it 
were  at  all  dependent  on  Deity  for  the  reality  of  its  substance, 
that  substance  would  be  entirely  alive,  by  virtue  of  such  con- 
stant communication  bestowing  reality,  and  it  would  in  fact 
be  God,  because  not  cut  off  from  God  really.  But  because  it 
has  been  cut  off  from  God,  and  is  no  longer  dependent  upon 
Him  for  anything,  it  is  utterly  dead,  and  by  its  being  dead, 
yet  real,  a  basis  is  laid  for  a  subsequently  derived  vitality 
which  shall  be  constantly  communicated  to  it  by  virtue  of  a 
steady  beating  of  the  pulse  of  (the  Divine)  life.  *  *  * 

Swedenborg  teaches  that  there  is  an  influx,  and  a 
constant  one,  from  the  Creator  into  certain  portions 
of  the  dead  substance  which  He  did  in  the  beginning 
create,  and  he  teaches  that  the  substances  into  which  such 
influx  continues  are  organized  substances  only — that  is  to 
say,  substances  which  have  been  organized  into  forms  or 
organs  capable  of  receiving  an  influx  of  lif e  from  Him.  He 
further  teaches  that  this  influx  in  the  so  organized  forms  of 
dead  substance  consists,  not  of  an  influx  of  substance,  but 
solely  of  an  influx  of  force  or  motion 

When  Swedenborg  says  "  nothing  "  can  exist  except  by 
constant  influx  from  the  Divine,  he  means  that  nothing 
living  can  so  exist ;  for  it  is  the  world  of  life  and  not  the 
world  of  physics  and  dead  matter  that  his  function  is  to 


138 

teach  about.  See  that  passage  at  the  beginning  of  one  of 
the  captions  of  "  Divine  Love  "  (D.  L.  ex  A.  E.  VIII.),  where 
he  says  that  " by  all  things  in  the  world" — omnia  mundi — 
are  meant  living  creatures  only ;  and  that  the  matters  of 

wych  they  are  composed  are  not  meant 

When  Swedenborg  says  that  except  for  constant  main- 
tenance from  the  Deity  "everything"  (omnia)  would  in- 
stantly perish,  by  "  everything  "  he  means  "  every  living 
thing  " ;  and  when  he  says  that  nothing  can  exist  a  moment 
without  influx,  he  means  that  "  no  living  thing  "  can  exist 
for  a  moment  without  influx. 

These  so  positive  statements  of  what  "  a  very  small 
number "  affirm  that  the  doctrines  teach,  are  made 
without  any  particular  reference  to  passages  where 
such  things  are  believed  to  be  taught ;  and  except  the 
single  reference  to  D.  L.  ex  A.  E.  VIII.  no  passage  is 
cited  which  is  supposed  even  indirectly  to  support 
them.  In  fact  there  are  no  such  passages  ;  it  is  all  a 
misconception  of  what  the  writings  most  plainly  teach 
— so  plainly  that,  with  remarkable  unanimity,  almost 
all  readers  of  the  writings  have  concurred  in  under- 
standing them  to  teach  the  exact  opposite  of  what  is 
here  affirmed. 

To  answer  effectively  the  question  of  the  memorial, 
it  is  necessary  to  clear  away  these  fundamental  miscon- 
ceptions, by  citing  some  of  the  very  many  passages  in 
the  writings  that  disprove  and  correct  them. 

And  first,  as  to  the  one  passage  which  the  writer 
relies  upon,  to  support  his  affirmation  that  wherever 
Swedenborg  says  that  " nothing"  can  exist  for  a 
moment  without  continued  influx  from  the  Divine,  and 
that  "  everything "  exists  by  such  influx,  he  means, 
always  and  only,  every  living  thing.  To  be  rightly 
understood  the  passage  referred  to  (D.  L.  ex  A.  E. 


139 

VIII.)  must  be  considered  in  its  relation  to  the  general 
subject  there  treated  of,  as  shown  by  reference  to  the 
preceding  sections.  The  first  and  second  sections 
relate  to  the  definition  of  what  love  is,  that  it  is  life  ; 
and  that  "  the  Lord  is  love  itself,  because  life  itself." 
The  heads  of  the  following  sections  are  these  : 

III.  Life,  which  is  Divine  love,  is  in  form. 

IV.  That  form  is  the  form  of  use,  in  every  complex. 
V.  Man  in  particular  is  in  such  form. 

VI.  Man  in  general  is  in  such  form. 
VII.  Heaven  is  in  such  form. 

Then  comes  the  passage  referred  to : 

VJLLL.  All  things  in  the  world  (omnia  mundi)  are  in  simi- 
lar form.  By  all  things  in  the  world  (omnia  mundi)  are 
meant  animate  things — those  that  walk  and  creep  on  the 
earth,  those  that  fly  in  the  heavens,  and  those  that  swim  in 
the  waters.  And  things  that  vegetate  are  also  meant — trees 
and  shrubs,  flowers,  plants  and  grasses.  But  the  atmos- 
pheres, waters  and  matters  of  the  earth  are  only  means  for 
their  generation  and  production. 

The  subject  here  is  life,  or  love  ;  and  the  teaching  is 
that  life  only  exists  in  forms,  which  are  forms  of  use. 
Forms  of  use  that  are  receptive  of  life  are  living,  or- 
ganic forms — which  are  only  in  the  animal  and  vege- 
table kingdoms.  The  forms  of  use  below  these,  in  the 
mineral  kingdom,  are  not  receptive  of  life,  but  of 
activities  from  life,  and  are  not  here  treated  of.  Hence, 
in  this  connection,  where  life  and  forms  of  life  in  the 
universe  are  treated  of,  omnia  mundi  are  defined  to 
mean  all  living  things.  But  this  limitation  of  the  mean- 
ing of  the  terms  is  local  in  this  particular  connection. 
To  affirm  that  it  is  of  universal  application  to  these  and 


140 

similar  terms  throughout  the  writings,  is  a  forced  and 
entirely  groundless  assumption.  There  need  be  no 
other  proof  that  it  is  so  than  the  fact  that  in  a  pre- 
ceding part  of  this  very  treatise — the  part  appended  to 
the  last  numbers  of  the  A.  E. — Swedenborg  defines 
these  same  words,  omnia  mundi,  as  including  in  that 
connection  all  the  subjects  of  "  the  three  kingdoms  of 
nature  "  (A.  E.  1197).  And  so  with  the  terms  "  all 
things  of  nature  "  (A.  E.  1208) ;  "  all  things  in  the  uni- 
verse "  (D.  L.  W.  52)  which  are  said  to  be  "  full  of  the 
Divine  love  and  wisdom,"  expressly  include  "  all  things 
of  the  mineral  kingdom ";  and  "  all  things  that  are 
created "  (D.  L.  W.  61)  include  "  all  things  of  the 
mineral  kingdom  in  general  and  particular."  And  so 
of  other  similar  expressions  throughout  the  writings. 
It  is  indeed  more  just  to  infer  from  such  local  limita- 
tion as  is  above  referred  to,  that  wherever  such  terms 
are  not  limited,  expressly  or  by  clear  implication,  the 
author  intends  them  to  be  taken  to  mean  "  all  things  " 
in  the  widest  sense . 


The  Ministers  have  omitted  to  observe  the  pre- 
cise manner  in  which,  says  Swedenborg,  this  union 
exists  of  the  spiritual  and  the  natural  in  "  every- 
thing in  the  world."  No  one  questions  that  Sweden- 
borg sometimes  uses  the  words  omnia  mundi — 
"  everything  in  the  world  " — so  as  to  embrace  other 
things  than  animals  and  vegetables.  The  question 
is,  does  he  ever  use  them  in  this  all-comprehensive 
sense  when  he  declares  that  "  every  thing"  would 
perish  but  for  an  inflow  maintained  from  God?  The 
context  of  the  various  passages  alone  can 


141 

decide  this  question ;  and  the  Council  of  Ministers 
have  not  cited  any  passages  which  involve  this 
question;  i.  £.,  they  have  not  cited  any  of  those 
passages  where  it  is  said  that  "  every  thing " 
would  perish  save  for  such  maintained  inflow.  The 
nearest  approach  they  make  to  such  a  citation  is 
perhaps  at  n.  1197  of  the  Apocalypse  Explained, 
where  our  author  says  : 

"  That  the  spiritual  and  natural  have  been 
"  united  in  each  and  every  thing  in  the  world  in 
"  such  wise  that  it  is  with  those  two  as  it  is  with 
"  the  soul's  residing  in  each  and  every  thing  in 
"  the  body,  *  *  *  can  be  illustrated  and  con- 
"  firmed  by  the  subjects  and  objects  of  the  three 
"  kingdoms  of  Nature,  which  are  every  thing  in 
"the  world." 

He  thereby  states — what  the  Ministers  omit  to 
state — the  manner  in  which  the  spiritual  has  been 
united  to  the  natural;  viz,  that  it  is  the  same 
manner  in  which  the  soul  and  the  body  are 
united.  Observe  strictly  this  manner  of  union. 
The  Ministers  have  omitted  to  observe  this  man- 
ner, although  distinctly  stated  ;  and  they  have  in- 
vented, or  from  Berkeley  imported,  a  wholly  dif- 
ferent manner.  We  shall  have  it,  according  to  the 
Ministers  (who  believe  that  the  spiritual  is  united 
to  the  natural  in  the  sense  that  the  spiritual 
flows  steadily  into  each  atom  of  natural  substance 


142 

and  produces  its  mass  and  reality) — I  say  we 
shall  have  it,  according  to  the  Ministers,  that  the 
soul  produces  the  substance  (and  each  moment 
maintains  the  substance)  of  each  atom  in  the 
body  human ;  and  that  when  the  soul  departs,  the 
atoms  of  the  body  vanish  into  nothingness ;  for  in 
the  manner  in  which  the  soul  resides  in  the  body 
and  not  otherwise,  says  Swedenborg,  does  the  spir- 
itual reside  in,  and  stand  united  to,  the  natural. 
Such  an  absurdity  as  the  above  his  followers 
have  attributed  to  Swedenborg ;  not  this  very  ab- 
surdity, but  one  exactly  like  it.  Let  us  hear  him 
where  he  speaks  of  causes.  He  says,  "  The  reason 
why  nothing  exists  in  Nature  except  from  the  spir- 
itual, is  because  there  can  be  no  effect  without  a 
cause ;  whatever  exists  in  effect  has  its  being  from 
the  cause  thereof  ;  and  that  which  has  not  from 
the  cause  its  being,  is — [What?  Non-entity? 
Nothingness  ?  O,  no] — is  borne  off  or  put  one  side 
(separatur)."  A  thing  which  can  be  borne  off  or 
put  one  side  is  not  a  non-entity  or  nothingness  in  a 
material  sense,  but  it  is  a  spiritual  non-entity,  be- 
cause there  is  nothing  spiritual  in  it.  He  says 
the  above  in  the  same  passage  in  which  he  says, 
"  The  reason  why  not  a  thing  in  Nature  (nihilin 
natura)  exists  save  from  the  spiritual,  is  because 
there  cannot  be  any  thing  in  existence,"  i.  e.,  alive 
or  living,  "unless  it  have  a  soul.  All  is  called 
soul  that  is  Being  (essentia).  What  has  no  Being 


143 

in  itself  does  not  exist  (non  existit),  for  it  is  a  non- 
entity, because  there  is  no  Esse  from  which  it 
could  come.  And  so  stands  the  case  with  Nature." 
(Apoc.  Exp.  n.  1206,  continuation  1).  Now  if 
what  Swedenborg  here  means  includes  any 
atom  of  natural  substance,  and  if  these  atoms 
would  vanish  into  nothingness  but  for  steady 
spiritual  influx,  how,  when  such  influx  is  with- 
drawn, would  there  be  anything  remaining  of 
which  Swedenborg  could  say  that  it  is  then 
"borne  off"  or  "put  one  side"?  But  if  he  is 
speaking  of  living  organic  forms,  does  he  not 
speak  truths  familiar  to  anatomists  and  botanists  ? 
Does  he  not  say  the  same  thing  in  the  Principia, 
Part  1,  Chap.  1  ?  "  We  see  then,"  he  writes 
*  *  *  "  that  Nature  produces  them  by  means 
of  the  connexion  extending  from  one  end  to  the 
other,  both  of  substances  and  CAUSES  *  *  * 
If  the  connexion  with  any  part  were  broken,  that 
part  would  no  longer  partake  of  the  life  of  the 
rest  of  the  body,  but  WOULD  DIE."  He  says  this 
of  living  vegetable  and  animal  bodies.  The  ex- 
tract can  be  seen  at  length  at  pp.  61-64  of  the 
foregoing  letter.  The  Ministers  cannot  be  per- 
fectly familiar  with  the  forms  of  animal  and 
vegetable  life ;  else  they  would  know  that,  as  be- 
tween the  soul  and  the  body,  the  soul  is  found 
united  not  only  to  so-called  living  natural  sub- 
stances, but  also  united  as  it  were,  by  means  of 


144 

the  so-called  living  substances  as  links  or  interme- 
diaries, to  other  natural  substances  which  are  wholly 
dead,  and  which  by  scientists  are  recognized  as 
wholly  dead,  and  which  are  recognized  as  having 
already  been  "  borne  off  "  or  "  put  aside  "  from  the 
organic  body,  even  though  they  may  still  be  linger- 
ing within  it — within  it,  if  we  speak  from  the  thought 
of  space — or  may  still  be  clinging  on  the  outskirts. 
Such  substances  are  particles  of  effete  carbon 
in  the  body,  which  being  no  longer  in  vital  union 
with  the  soul,  are  "  borne  off  "  through  the  lungs  ; 
such  substances,  morever,  are  the  nails  and  the 
hair  and  the  cuticle  in  their  outermost  growths,  all 
of  which  are  "  borne  off"  by  falling  loose,  unless 
earlier  they  are  pared  or  cut  or  scraped  or  worn 
away.  Such  substance,  in  the  vegetable  king- 
dom, is  the  outermost  bark  or  skin  of  trees.  As 
soon  as  any  of  these  substances  cease  to  be  kept 
internally  in  organic  living  form  by  the  inflow  of 
life,  they  in  general  are  put  aside  and  carried  be- 
yond the  camp.  If  they  are  not  "  removed  "  in  a 
spatial  sense  of  the  word,  they  still  are  removed, 
as  it  were,  by  virtue  simply  of  being  cut  off  from 
an  inflow  of  life  ;  thus  the  tips  of  the  finger  nails 
and  of  the  hair,  and  the  scruff  of  the  skin,  form  no 
longer  a  part  of  the  body  when  they  are  dead, 
even  though  the  nails  and  hair  be  let  go  un- 
trimmed,  or  though  the  skin  remain  unwashed  or 
remain  unclean  from  lack  of  friction. 


145 

But  the  Ministers,  when  they  cite  the  passage 
showing — what  no  one  has  questioned — that  "  om- 
nia  mundi  "  sometimes  means  with  Swedenborg 
the  subjects  of  the  three  kingdoms  of  Nature, 
omit  to  cite  the  next  preceding  passage  of  the 
context ;  which  preceding  passage  is  more  to  the 
point.  He  says  (Apoc.  Exp.,  n.  1196,  cont.) : 

"  The  spiritual  and  the  natural  are  in  every 
"  created  thing  in  this  world ;  the  spiritual  as  soul, 
"  and  the  natural  as  body  ;  or  the  spiritual  as 
"  an  inside  and  the  natural  as  an  outside ;  or  the 
"  spiritual  as  a  cause,  and  the  natural  as  an  effect. 
"  That  those  two  cannot  be  separated  (sepa- 
"  rari)  in  one  single  thing  is  known  to  every  man 
"  of  wisdom ;  for  if  you  separate  (separai]  the 
"  cause  from  the  effect,  the  effect  perishes  (dilab- 
11  itur),  just  as  you  when  you  separate  the  soul 
from  the  body." 

There  is  then  just  one  sense  in  which,  and  just 
one  way,  in  which,  the  effect  called  "natural" 
perishes,  when  separated  from  the  cause  called 
"  spiritual."  The  sense  and  way,  says  Sweden- 
borg, in  which  it  perishes  is  the  sense  and  way  in 
which  the  body  perishes  when  the  soul  departs. 
It  does  not  perish  in  the  sense  that  its  atoms  turn 
to  nothing.  As  a  body,  it  perishes  absolutely  and 
instanter.  As  a  carcass,  it  flourishes  a  long  time 
thereafter  in  redolent,  effluvial  might. 


146 

He  says,  "  If  you  separate  the  Cause  from  the 
Effect,  the  Effect  perishes  (dilabitur)"  What 
kind  of  Cause  does  he  mean,  and  what  kind  of 
Effect  does  he  mean  ?  A  Cause  which  is  a  sub- 
stance,  and  an  Effect  which  is  a  substance  ?  the 
Cause  being  the  composing  material  of  the  Effect, 
and  "  causing  "  the  effect  in  the  sense  that  it  is  the 
composing  material  of  the  Effect  ? — a  Cause  such 
as  component  strands  are  to  the  rope  composed 
thereof,  or  such  as  as  component  rope-yarns  are 
to  the  strand  composed  thereof,  or  such  as 
the  hemp  or  coir  fibres  or  filaments  are 
to  the  rope-yarn  composed  thereof?  Such 
Causes  and  such  Effects,  viz.,  Causes  and  Effects 
consisting  each  of  Substance,  do  exist,  as  we  see ; 
and  with  them  the  universal  law  holds  good  that 
if  you  pull  away  the  Cause,  the  Effect  will 
straightway  vanish.  This  application  of  the  law, 
indeed,  is  "  known  to  every  man  of  wisdom  ; "  but 
Swedenborg  does  not  here  refer  to  this  applica- 
tion ;  since  it  is  known  also  to  men  of  no  wisdom 
that  a  rope-yarn  vanishes  if  you  take  away  all  the 
fibres  in  it.  What  Swedenborg  speaks  of  here,  is 
Cause  in  the  sense  of  causing  Form  or  change  of 
Form ;  and  he  here  speaks  of  Effect  in  the  sense 
of  being  a  Form  or  change  of  Form  effected ;  of 
Form,  not  of  Substance,  he  here  is  speaking.  The 
atoms  of  matter  have  no  natural  and  inborn  pro- 
pensity to  group  themselves  into  forms  of  ani- 


147 

mals  and  vegetables.  The  forces  whereby  they 
are  grouped  into  living  forms  are  from  a  source 
internal  to  those  atoms ;  but  the  intelligence  where- 
by those  forces  are  harnessed  and  perpetually 
guided  is  from  a  source  external  to  those  atoms. 
Instantly  the  living  intelligence  is  withdrawn,  the 
atoms  begin  to  take  on  a  new  arrangement  under 
pressure  of  their  own  inborn  blind  and  unintelli- 
gent forces  ;  and  the  living  form  gradually  changes 
to  a  form  which  is  other  than  a  form  of  life.  The 
Cause  of  the  living  form,  says  Swedenborg,  is  the 
Spiritual ;  of  it  the  living  form  is  a  steadily  pro- 
duced Effect ;  separate  the  Cause,  and  the  Effect 
"  slips  all  asunder  " — dilabitur,  says  Swedenborg — 
slips  all  asunder  as  do  the  atoms  of  the  arrangement 
called  the  Body  when  the  Body  dies  and  decays. 
These  things  Swedenborg  does  not  stop  to  prove  ; 
he  says  they  are  known  already  to  every  man  of 
wisdom.  The  things  which  the  Ministers  set  forth 
cannot  be  these,  for  the  things  which  the  Ministers 
set  forth  were  never  known  until  certain  dreamers 
arose  and  told  their  dreams. 

But  Swedenborg  does  not  stop  here.  In  that 
same  passage  he  says  : 

"  There  is  not  a  thing  (ne  hilurri)  in  Nature,  nor 
"  can  there  be  a  thing  in  Nature,  in  which  the 
"  spiritual  is  not.  That  the  spiritual  sits  in  each 
"  and  every  thing  that  is  in  the  three  kingdoms  of 
"  Nature,  and  THE  FASHION  in  which  it  sits  therein 


148 

"  (quomodo  inest),  shall  be  told  in  the   following 
"  passages." 

How  this  spiritual  dwells  in  the  mineral  King- 
dom is  the  question  at  issue.  The  Ministers  think 
it  dwells  in  mineral  atoms  by  pouring  steadily 
into  each  atom  a  current  of  substance,  which  cur- 
rent causes  (they  think)  the  atom  to  continue  real. 
In  the  passage  just  cited,  Swedenborg  promises  to 
solve  the  question  and  tell  us  just  how  the  spir- 
itual dwells  in  the  mineral  kingdom.  And  he  tells 
us.  First  (nn.  1197,  1198,  cont.)  he  tells  us  how  it 
dwells  in  the  animal  kingdom ;  viz.,  that  animals 
of  all  kinds  know  how  to  propagate  their  species, 
to  tend  and  feed  their  young,  to  choose  fodder 
for  themselves  and  to  choose  company  for  them- 
selves. "  Such  KNOWLEDGE,  he  says,  is  spiritual ; 
"  so  too  is  the  AFFECTION  whence  that  knowledge 
"  is  begotten."  Observe  that  Knowledge  and  Af- 
fection are  what  is  spiritual.  Where  these  flow  in, 
the  spiritual  flows  in.  Where  these  do  not  flow  in, 
the  spiritual  does  not  flow  in.  Do  Knowledge  and 
Affection  flow  into  mineral  atoms?  Do  these 
either  consciously  or  unconsciously  feel  and 
know?  The  more  degraded  negroes  of  the  West 
Coast  believe  these  flow  into  minerals.  These 
negroes  are  animists,  and  they  hold  and  profess 
that  an  inward  spiritual  essence  sits  within 
their  fetishes.  So  do  the  Pantheists.  Not  so 
the  worshipper  of  Christ. 


149 

Next  (n.  1203  to  n.  1215  cont.)  Swedenborg  tells 
us  how  the  spiritual  dwells  in  the  vegetable  king- 
dom. The  plastic  power  which  governs  and  guides 
the  formation  of  substances  into  vegetable  forms 
is  not  Affection,  is  not  Knowledge ;  it  is  USE. 
Use  is  neither  Affection  nor  Knowledge  ;  it  is  a 
derivative  from  Affection  through  Knowledge  ;  it 
is  the  application  of  knowledge,  from  affection,  to 
Force.  If  the  Force  is  a  blind  and  unintelligent 
Force,  clearly  there  is  no  influx  of  knowledge  and 
affection  into  it ;  thus  there  is  no  spiritual  influx  ; 
but  if  an  affectional  and  intelligent  principle  shall 
guide  (guide,  not  produce)  the  force,  the  application 
of  the  force  is  what  is  called  Use.  The  machine 
known  as  a  tree  or  plant  is  "  run  "  by  two  forces, 
one  blind  and  unintelligent,  proceeding  from  the 
time-beats  (modificatio,  Apoc.  Exp.  n.  1206,  cont.  . 
n.  1134,  cont.)  of  the  solar  radiance  ;  the  other  an 
intelligent  and  voluntary  force,  proceeding  from 
the  time-beats  of  the  radiance  of  the  Sun  of 
Minds ;  and  the  latter  force  steers  or  guides  the 
former,  employing  the  former  as  an  instrumental 
cause  to  produce  the  effects  which  it,  the  principal 
cause,  intends  and  designs.  This  effort  of  the 
principal  cause  upon  the  instrumental  cause  is 
like  the  effort  of  the  mind  of  an  engineer  upon 
some  mighty  engine  ;  the  engineer's  mind  availing 
itself  of  the  powers  of  the  engine,  but  not  gener- 
ating them  in  any  sense  whatever.  Yet  in  nature, 


150 

unlike  as  in  the  engine,  the  natural  was  originally 
created,  even  as  to  its  substances  and  as  to  their 
blind  and  unintelligent  forces,  from  spiritual  sub- 
stances and  forces ;  and  in  this  sense  the  spiritual 
WAS  (not  is)  the  prime  material  of  nature. 

The  effort  of  spiritual  affection  and  intelligence 
upon  the  forces  of  nature — the  effort  to  make  a 
USE  of  them  as  instrumental  causes,  is  what 
Swedenborg  calls  a  "  conatus ;"  and  he  says  this 
effort  acts  on  even  the  minutest  bodies,  and  pro- 
ceeds from  the  spiritual  acting  in  them  and  upon 
them. 

This  "  conatus  "  is  what  has  been  mistaken  for 
some  imaginary  mystical  power  supposed  to  pre- 
serve from  annihilation  the  whole  mineral  uni- 
verse. Swedenborg  states  distinctly  what  this 
conatus  or  effort  in  the  mineral  kingdom  is.  He 
says  (Div.  Love  and  Wis.,  n.  61)  that  it  is  the 
conatus  or  effort  "  to  bring  forth  SHAPES  (not  sub- 
stances) which  relate  to  Man  ;  which  shapes,  as 
already  has  been  said,  are  each  and  every  thing 
belonging  to  the  vegetable  kingdom ;  thus  the 
effort  to  bring  forth  USES."  The  so-called  Sweden- 
borgians  mostly  hold  that  this  "  conatus  "  includes 
the  perpetual  sustentation  of  the  substance  of  min- 
eral atoms  by  feeding  them  with  Divine  Substance 
poured  steadily  into  them.  Not  so  holds  Sweden- 
borg himself.  In  that  same  passage  he  says : 
"  The  '  conatus '  toward  turning  into  vegetable 


151 

shape,  and  thus  towards  subserving  uses,  is  the 
OUTMOST  BOUNDARY  of  effort  proceeding  from  the 
Divine  in  things  which  He  has  created  (ultimum 
ex  Divino  in  creatis)."  I  know  the  Ministers  will 
say,  "  Yes,  but  Swedenborg  only  calls  this  the 
utmost  or  outermost  boundary  ;  why  shall  not  our 
beloved  re-creation-effort  be  lying  somewhere  in 
between  the  God-centre  and  that  utmost  boundary 
of  creative  effort  which  we  admit  consists  merely 
in  elevating  mineral  forms  into  vegetable  forms  "  ? 
I  reply,  the  reason  why  that  is  not  true  is  this : 
There  are  two  centres  with  two  separate  expanses 
(True  Chr.  ReL,  n.  35) ;  one,  the  Life-Centre  with 
its  Life-expanse  surrounding  it ;  the  other  the 
Nature-centre,  with  its  Nature-expanse  surround- 
ing it ;  and  the  Life-centre  and  its  expanse  is  so 
distinct  and  separate  from  the  Nature-centre  and 
its  expanse,  that  the  expanse  (and  a  fortiori 
the  centre)  of  the  one  is  visible  objectively 
from  the  standpoint  of  the  other  centre  and 
expanse  (modo  etiam  velit  ex  centra  et  expanse 
Vitae  spectare  centrum  et  expansum  Naturae 
et  non  vice  versa).  And  the  two  are  so  distinct 
that  they  have  nothing  in  common,  being  of 
utterly  diverse  essence,  and  having  no  other 
communication  than  simply  that  one  answers 
to  the  other  (D.  L.  W.,  nn.  83,  90).  Thus  the 
Life-centre  is  not  the  centre  of  the  Nature-ex- 
panse ;  but  the  Life-centre  and  the  Nature-centre 


152 

are  far  apart ;  and  their  respective  expanses  (and 
thereby  their  respective  circumferences)  are  only 
externally  tangent  to  each  other ;  that  is,  it  is  only 
on  the  outside  of  each  that  each  touches  the  other ; 
and  the  point  at  which  they  touch  each  other  is 
the  mineral  "  conatus  toward  turning  into  vege- 
table shape  and  thus  subserving  USES  "  (Div.  Love 
and  Wis.,  n.  61). 

If  there  were  some  creative  effort,  as  the  Min- 
isters believe,  acting  upon  matter  and  taking  effect 
upon  portions  of  the  Nature-expanse  which  lie  (as 
they  imagine)  between  the  Life-centre  and  that 
vegetative  and  outermost  effort  or  conatus  pro- 
ceeding from  the  Life-centre,  then  would  it  not  be 
necessary  that  the  Nature-expanse  should  first 
have  obtruded  itself  into  the  Life-expanse  ?  thus 
would  it  not  be  necessary  that  the  two  expanses 
should  first  have  overlapped  each  other  and  have 
partly  commingled  together  ?  Yet  these  two  ex- 
panses do  not  intermingle ;  vita  et  recipient  ejus 
*  *  *  non  se  commiscent  (Apoc.  Exp.,  n.  1121, 
cont.).  Moreover,  the  spiritual  distance  from  the 
Life-centre  to  the  outmost  or  vegetative  boundary 
of  its  effort  is  far  differently  occupied  and  taken 
up.  It  is  occupied  and  taken  up  with  a  series  of 
Life-efforts  from  centre  toward  circumference,  these 
being  as  follows,  viz.:  centre-ward,  or  nearest  the 
centre,  the  life  celestial-human ;  next  outward, 
the  life  spiritual-human ;  next  outward,  the  life 


153 

natural-human ;  next  outward,  life  animal ;  and 
outmost  of  all,  the  vegetative  vitality,  which  is 
not  really  life  at  all,  says  Swedenborg  (in  ultimis 
est  non  vivum;  *  *  *  anima  vegetativa  non 
vivat.  Apoc.  Exp.,  n.  1212,  6,  cont.),  and  is,  as  he 
says,  the  utmost  boundary  of  the  Divine  Effort.  The 
boundary,  he  says.  Now  the  boundary  of  a  thing 
is  where  the  thing  ceases,  and  where  it  is  no  longer. 
But  the  Ministers  think  of  the  Life -centre  as  lying 
within  the  Nature-expanse  and  as  generating  stead- 
ily that  expanse,  and  think  of  God  as  being  the 
inmost  of  nature  (cogitatio  quod  intimum  Naturae 
sit  Deus.  Apoc.  Exp.,  n.  1131,  cont.) ;  for  they 
think  that  from  that  inmost  He  still  and  steadily 
generates  all  substance.  They  forget  that  spirit- 
ual substance  lies,  not  within  natural  substance, 
but  surrounding  natural  substance  (spiritualibus 
*  *  *  a  quibus  nisi  circumcincta  forent,  etc., 
Div.  Love  and  Wis.3  n.  158 ;  sed  usque  ambiuntur 
ab  atmosphaeris  spiritualibus,  Ib.,  n.  175;  vita 
Divina  sit  *  *  *  extus  in  igne  solis  mundi 
naturalis,  Ib.,  n.  157) ;  and  they  forget  that  it  is 
from  the  outside  that  natural  substances  in  the 
soils  are  impregnated  with  substances  that  are  of 
spiritual  origin  (D.  L.  W.,  n.  310) ;  and  forget 
that  substances  of  the  natural  world  are  acted  upon 
from  without  by  the  substances  of  the  spiritual 
world,  and  do  thereupon  resist  and  do  react 
against  the  latter  (D.  L.  W.,  n.  260). 


154 

As  already  observed,  Swedenborg  says  that  the 
spiritual  is  in  each  of  the  three  kingdoms  of 
nature ;  and  he  says  (Apoc.  Exp.,  1196.  cont.)  he 
will  now  proceed  to  tell  us  the  manner  (quomodo). 

After  describing  the  manner  in  which  the  spir- 
itual is  in  the  animal  kingdom,  he  tells  the  manner 
in  which  it  is  in  the  vegetable  kingdom.  If  the 
Ministers  are  right  in  their  theory  as  to  the  man- 
ner in  which  the  spiritual  is  in  the  mineral  king- 
dom, Swedenborg  makes  a  strange  omission ;  for 
after  making  the  promise  squarely,  he  nowhere 
fulfills  it  as  to  the  mineral  kingdom,  nor  even  so 
much  as  hints  at  the  Ministers'  theory.  But  if  it 
is  true,  as  (Div.  Wis.,  III.,  2)  he  says  it  is,  that  God 
is  not  present  in  His  works  materially,  but  spirit- 
ually, being  present  (as  he  says)  in  their  USES,  and 
their  Uses  being  (as  he  says)  not  material,  but 
spiritual — if  all  this  is  true  of  God  and  true  of  the 
spiritual  which  comes  from  God,  then  Swedenborg 
fully  redeems  his  promise ;  for  the  passages  which 
follow  the  promise  do  set  forth  clearly  the  Uses 
which  the  subjects  of  the  mineral  kingdom  per- 
form. Chief  among  these  he  mentions  (Apoc. 
Exp.,  n.  1207,  cont.),  their  being  so  shaped  that 
they  perfectly  accord  with  substances  of  the  spiritual 
world  ;  and  says  that  this  is  true  as  to  substances 
of  the  natural  atmosphere,  of  the  natural  waters 
and  of  the  natural  soils ;  and  is  true  of  them  as  to 
each  individual  particle  ;  seeing,  as  he  says,  that 


155 

these  last  are  effects  "which  WERE  produced 
(effectus  producti,  not  effectus  qui  producuntur) 
from  the  spiritual  as  a  cause" — referring,  of 
course,  to  the  original  creation  of  them  by  com- 
position from  elements  which  had  been  spiritual 
until,  by  such  combination,  they  became  natural 
(True  Chr.  Eel,  n.  280;  also  see  p.  11  of  the 
letter  to  which  this  is  an  appendix).  And  he  says 
(Apoc.  Exp.,  n.  1207,  cont.),  that  these  natural 
substances  are  so  constituted  that  they  can  be 
brought  into  combination  with  spiritual  substances, 
into  a  combination  in  which  they  will  Jit  (apte 
conjungi  possint).  Thus  it  is  that  the  substances 
of  the  mineral  kingdom  form  a  sort  of  ready 
locker — promptuarium,  he  says  at  Apoc.  Exp.  n. 
1208,  con. — in  which  are  stored  at  hand  the  sub- 
stances needful  to  furnish  bodies  for  the  animal 
soul  and  for  what  he  calls  the  vegetable  soul. 
These  natural  substances  furnish,  he  says,  an  out- 
fit of  clothing — an  induitio,  as  he  says — for  those 
souls  ;  thereby  (as  he  says  in  the  Divine  Love  and 
Wisdom  near  the  passage  where  he  tells  about 
Hans  Sloan's  bird)  the  soul  is  set  forth  in  the  stuff 
called  Matter,  or  is  "  stuffed,"  as  he  says,  with 
natural  substances. 

If  USE  be  what  the  spiritual  resides  in,  then 
surely  the  spiritual  does  reside  in  this  Use  of 
matter  and  minerals.  But  the  merely  sensuous 
mind  finds  it  hard,  or  even  impossible,  to  rise  to 


156 

the  conception  of  residence  in  Use  as  being  any  real 
residence.  Use  is  spiritual ;  and  what  is  spiritual 
seems,  to  the  sensuous  mind,  as  nothing  real.  Yet 
what  man  of  reason  will  deny  that  there  is  something 
spiritual  in  everything  constructed  so  as  to  be  useful. 
For  Form  or  Arrangement  is  all  that  makes  sub- 
stance useful ;  and  Form  or  Arrangement  is 
spiritual.  Is  not  Arrangement  the  very  Logos 
whereby  the  world  was  made  ?  Arrangement  has 
none  of  the  attributes  of  matter ;  it  has  all  the 
attributes  of  spirit.  Apply  it  to  spiritual  sub- 
stance, i.  e.9  throw  spiritual  substance  into  fit  Form 
or  Arrangement,  and  you  have  a  real  spiritual 
thing.  Apply  it  to  natural  substance  and  you  have 
a  natural  thing,  but  the  Arrangement  is  not  less 
spiritual  than  before.  Does  not  the  intellect  per- 
ceive Arrangement  ?  can  the  physical  eye  see, 
i.  e.,  understand,  Arrangement,  or  see  anything 
but  the  mere  substances  arranged  ?  Nay,  friend, 
lif t  up  your  eyes.  Will  you  affirm  there  is  nothing 
"  spiritual "  in  Millet's  Angelus  unless  it  be  in  the 
substance  of  each  atom  of  the  paint  and  oils 
thereof?  Take,  then,  those  atoms  of  paint  and 
oil,  and  rearrange  them  and  paint  your  barn  door 
therewith  ;  you  then  will  have,  you  may  think,  as 
much  of  the  spiritual  as  you  had  before.  But 
perhaps  you  will  say  "  The  painter  arranged  those 
atoms  in  a  peculiar  way  ;  it  is  the  way  in  which 
he  has  arranged  them  that  is  spiritual."  Quite 


157 

true ;  and  just  as  artistic  is  the  Creator's  work 
which  He  did  in  shaping  forth  the  atoms  of  the 
mineral  kingdom  and  of  all  inorganic  substance ; 
His  arrangement  of  them  is  wise  or  spiritual ;  and 
this  is  what  Swedenborg  means  by  saying  that 
the  spiritual  can  be  descried  even  in  such  forth- 
sh  apings. 

The  Ministers  continue  as  follows  :] 

It  is  true — and  a  misunderstanding  of  the  fact  may 
have  misled  the  memorialist — that  Swedenborg  in  illus- 
trating the  continuance  and  perpetual  operation  of  the 
Divine  creative  energy,  takes  his  illustrations  almost 
exclusively  from  subjects  of  the  animal  and  vegetable 
kingdoms — the  kingdoms  of  organic  life — ;  rarely,  and 
only  in  a  general  way,  from  the  mineral  kingdom.  But 
this  is  not  because  the  Divine  creative  power  is  now 
only  exercised  in  these  two  kingdoms,  and  not  also  in 
the  sustentation  or  perpetual  creation  of  inorganic 
forms.  The  reason  is  clearly  indicated  in  D.  L.  W.  313. 
Swedenborg  there  says : 

In  all  forms  of  uses  there  is  a  certain  image  of  creation. 
Forms  of  uses  are  of  three  kinds ;  forms  of  uses  of  the 
mineral  kingdom,  forms  of  uses  of  the  vegetable  king- 
dom, and  forms  of  uses  of  the  animal  kingdom.  The  forms 
of  uses  of  the  mineral  kingdom  cannot  be  described^  because 
they  are  not  visible  to  the  eye. 

He  then  tells  very  briefly  and  generally  what  these 
invisible  forms  of  uses  in  the  mineral  kingdom  are ;  and 
goes  on  to  illustrate  the  subject,  as  usual,  by  examples 
from  the  vegetable  and  animal  kingdoms,  where  the 
forms  of  uses  are  visible  and  can  be  described.  Thus, 


158 

the  reason  why  his  illustrations  are  taken  from  the  two 
organic  kingdoms  is,  that  they  only  furnish  visible  illus- 
trations— not  because  in  them  only,  but  in  them  ob- 
viously, there  is  "  a  certain  image  of  creation" ;  while 
in  the  subjects  of  the  mineral  kingdom,  though  just  as 
real,  it  is  not  obvious,  but  "  lurks  recondite  in  their 
efforts"  to  produce  uses  in  forms  (75.,  313,  310). 


The  Ministers  say  that  the  reason  why  Sweden- 
borg  gives  not  many  illustrations  of  the  "  susten- 
tation  or  perpetual  creation  of  inorganic  forms " 
(as  they  claim),  is  because  he  says  that  "the 
forms  of  uses  of  the  mineral  kingdom  cannot  be 
described,  because  they  are  not  visible  to  the  eye  "; 
and  they  say  that  "  in  the  subjects  of  the  mineral 
kingdom,"  the  operation  of  creating  or  sustaining 
the  reality  of  their  substance,  "  is,  though  just  as 
real,  not  so  obvious,  but  '  lurks  recondite  in  their 
efforts  '  to  prove  uses  in  forms." 

Referring  to  nn.  313,  310,  of  the  Divine  Love 
and  Wisdom,  whence  the  Ministers  make  the  quo- 
tation about  "  lurking  recondite,"  we  find  (n.  313, 
at  end)  that  what  lurks  recondite  is  not  the  act  of 
creation,  but  a  TYPE  OB  IMAGE  of  creation  ;  and 
that  that  in  which  it  lurks  recondite  is  not  the 
substances  from  which  the  soil  is  derived,  but  is 
the  "  conatus"  or  effort  of  those  substances  [not 
in  the  least  to  come  into  being  or  into  reality,  but] 
to  produce  the  forms  of  uses,  which  (n.  158)  are 
vegetables.  Granting,  in  the  interests  of  sheer 


159 

imagination,  that  the  substance  of  vegetables  is 
created  immediately  out  of  spiritual  substance, 
there  would  still  remain  lacking  an  explanation  of 
the  manner  in  which  the  substances  of  the  solid 
earth-ball  (tellus)  are,  as  the  Ministers  think,  per- 
petually recreated;  for  the  process  which  the 
Ministers  suppose  to  be  described  at  nn.  313,  310, 
and  which  they  suppose  to  be  a  process  of  matter- 
making,  is  a  process  confined  to  the  shallow  coat- 
ing of  the  soils  (terrae),  which  soils  Swedenborg, 
at  n.  314,  carefully  distinguishes  from  the  earth- 
ball.  The  translators  convert  the  soils  (terrae) 
into  "earths"  (failures).  Where  Swedenborg,  as 
at  D.  L.  W.,  n.  310,  treats  of  substances  of 
spiritual  origin  which  are  in  the  soil  and  which 
there  conjoin  themselves  with  matters  of  natural 
origin  (also  where,  as  at  D.  L.  W.,  nn.  302, 303,  Apoc. 
Exp.,  n.  1207  to  n.  1215,  cont.,  he  treats  of  the 
two  distinct  sets  of  substances  in  the  soils,  one  set 
being  natural  and  the  other  set  being  spiritual,  and 
where  he  traces  back  the  origin  of  the  set  of  spirit- 
ual substances  to  the  spiritual  Sun) — in  these  and 
similar  passages,  I  say  the  translators  make  him 
derive  all  the  substances  of  the  earth-clod  immedi- 
ately from  the  spiritual  Sun,  after  a  compression , 
etc.,  of  their  substance  (nn.  303,  305),  and  make 
him  find  in  them  some  quality  gotten  from  the  sub- 
stance of  the  spiritual  Sun.  My  friend  Frank 
Sewall  goes  further  in  his  work  on  Metaphysics 


160 

(pp.  81,  82) ;  and  considering  our  earth-ball  to  be 
one  of  the  "  earths "  into  which  the  translators 
have  converted  Swedenborg's  terrae  or  soils, 
affirms  that  water  is  "  produced  from  atmospheric 
air,"  and  that  the  mineral  earth  (p.  87,  middle)  is 
produced  from  water ! 

The  quotation  from  D.  L.  W.,  n.  313,  which  the 
Ministers  make,  as  showing  (they  think)  the  reason 
why  Sweden  borg  does  not  draw  from  the  mineral 
kingdom  many  illustrations  of  their  extraordinary 
doctrine  of  a  perpetual  creation  of  all  mineral 
atoms,  viz.,  that  "  forms  of  uses  of  the  mineral 
kingdom  cannot  be  described,  because  they  are 
not  visible  to  the  eye,"  seems  plausible  enough 
until  we  read  the  very  next  words  in  Swedenborg ; 
upon  reading  which  we  learn  that  the  origin  of  at 
least  a  portion  of  these  minerals,  supposed  by  the 
Ministers  to  spring  each  instant  from  the  creative 
Hand,  is,  in  fact,  rotten  vegetables  and  animal 
carcasses,  and  the  reeking  exhalations  thence  aris- 
ing. It  is  not  because  these  particles  of  subtile 
fragrance  steal  miraculously  hither  each  in- 
stant out  of  the  Infinite,  that  they  are  "  invisible 
to  the  eye  ;"  but  simply,  as  Swedenborg  says,  be- 
cause they  are  too  small  to  be  seen — I  may  add,  too 
small  to  be  seen  either  by  the  naked  eye  or  even 
with  the  help  of  such  microscopes  as  could  be  had 
a  hundred  years  ago.  The  same  can  be  said  of  the 
two  other  elements  of  the  soil  proper  (which  soil 


161 

proper  it  is  to  be  remembered  is  but  a  portion  of 
any  clod  of  visible  soil)  ;  consisting  of  most  minute 
particles  and  of  groups  of  such  particles  ;  by  these 
I  understand  the  various  gaseous,  liquid  and  solid 
particles  of  which  the  elements  of  the  soil  proper 
are  composed. 

The  Ministers  continue  as  follows  :] 

We  now  proceed  to  take  up  severally  the  more  fun- 
damental misconceptions  involved  in  the  memorial  and 
expressed  in  the  above  extracts,  and  subject  them  to 
the  light  of  the  express  teaching  of  the  writings.  They 
are  : 

1.  That  creation  is  a  past  Divine  work,   once   for  all 
achieved  and  ended  ;  and  there  is  no   creation  of   sub- 
stance since. 

2.  That  the  universe  thus  once   created   exists    "  en- 
tirely independent  of  Deity." 

3.  That  there  is  no  influx  from  the  Divine  except  in- 
flux of  life  into  organic  forms. 

1.  It  is  true  that  Swedenborg  often  speaks  of  the 
past  of  creation,  and  then  in  a  past  tense,  as  of  a  com- 
pleted act.  But  it  is  equally  true  that  he  often  speaks 
of  creation — and  frequently  in  the  same  immediate  con- 
nection— in  the  present  tense,  as  of  a  work  now  going 
on ;  not  as  completing  an  unfinished  work,  but  as  con- 
tinuing and  sustaining  what  was  first  created,  by  per- 
petual creation,  through  the  constant  operation  of  the 
same  Divine  creative  energy.  Thus  in  D.  L.  W.  291- 
294,  respecting  the  first  of  creation — the  creation  of  the 
spiritual  sun.  He  says  : 

That  sun  is  not  the  Lord,  but  is  the  proceeding  from  His 
Divine  love  and  Divine  wisdom.  It  is  called  the  proceeding 


162 

because  it  was  brought  forth  from  the  Divine  love  and  the 
Divine  wisdom,  which  are  substance  and  form  in  themselves, 
and  through  this  the  Divine  proceeds.  But  as  it  is  of  the 
nature  of  human  reason  not  to  acquiesce  unless  it  sees  a 
thing  from  its  cause,  that  is  unless  it  perceives  how — here, 
how  the  sun  of  the  spiritual  world,  which  is  not  the  Lord, 
l)ut  the  proceeding  from  Him,  is  produced — therefore,  some- 
thing shall  be  said  on  this  subject.  I  have  conversed  much 
with  the  angels  about  it.  *  *  *  They  said  it  is  similar 
to  the  sphere  of  affections  and  thoughts  therefrom  which 
surrounds  every  angel,  whereby  his  presence  is  realized  to 
others,  near  and  far ;  that  this  surrounding  sphere  is  not 
the  angel  himself,  but  is  from  each  and  all  things  of  his 
body,  whence  substances  continually  flow  forth  as  a  stream, 
and  what  flows  forth  surrounds  him.  And  that  these  sub- 
stances contiguous  to  his  body,  being  actuated  by  the  two 
fountains  of  motions  of  his  life,  the  heart  and  the  lungs,  ex- 
cite the  atmospheres  to  their  activities,  and  by  this  means 
produce  a  perception  as  of  his  presence  with  others.  And 
thus  that  there  is  not  a  separate  sphere  of  affections  and  re- 
sulting thoughts  which  goes  forth  and  is  continued,  al- 
though it  is  so  spoken  of ;  for  that  affections  are  mere  states 
of  the  forms  of  the  mind  in  him.  They  said  moreover  that 
there  is  such  a  sphere  about  every  angel  because  there  is 
about  the  Lord ;  and  that  the  sphere  about  the  Lord  is  in 
like  manner  from  Him,  and  that  that  sphere  is  their  sun,  or 
the  sun  of  the  spiritual  world.  It  has  often  been  given  me 
to  perceive  that  there  is  such  a  sphere  around  each  angel 
and  spirit.  *  *  *  By  these  experiences  I  have  been 
convinced  that  a  sphere  consisting  of  substances  set  free  and 
apart  from  their  bodies  encompasses  every  one  in  heaven 
and  every  one  in  hell.  It  was  perceived  also  that  a  sphere 
flows  forth  not  only  from  angels  and  spirits,  but  from  each 
and  all  things  that  appear  in  the  spiritual  world ;  from  trees 
and  their  fruits,  from  shrubs  and  their  flowers,  from  herbs 
and  grasses,  yea,  from  earths,  and  their  very  particles. 


163 

Whence  it  was  evident  that  it  is  universal,  both  with  living 
and  with  dead  things,  that  each  individual  thing  is  en- 
vironed by  the  like  of  that  which  is  within  it,  and  that  this 
is  continually  exhaled  by  it.  That  it  is  so  in  the  natural 
world  is  known  by  observation  of  many  of  the  learned,  and 
that  a  wave  of  effluvia  is  continually  flowing  forth  from  a 
man,  and  from  every  animal,  and  likewise  from  every  tree, 
shrub,  flower,  yea,  even  from  every  metal  and  stone.  The 
natural  world  derives  this  from  the  spiritual  world,  and  the 
spiritual  world  from  the  Divine. 

Since  the  things  that  constitute  the  sun  of  the  spiritual 
world  are  from  the  Lord,  therefore  they  are  not  life  in  it- 
self, but  are  devoid  of  life  in  itself — just  as  the  things  that 
flow  forth  from  an  angel  or  a  man  are  not  the  angel  or  man, 
but  are  from  them  devoid  of  their  life — making  one  with 
the  angel  or  man  no  otherwise  than  that  they  are  concord- 
ant, because  derived  from  the  forms  of  their  bodies,  which 
were  forms  of  their  life  within  them. 


The  Ministers  err  in  causing  Swedenborg  to 
affirm  that  the  Sun  of  the  spiritual  world  "  is  pro- 
duced." The  tense  in  Swedenborg  is  the  tense 
of  past  and  completed  action  ;  and  the  Latin 
reads  that  the  Sun  of  the  spiritual  \rorld  "  WAS 
produced"  (productus  est,  not  producitur).  With 
reference  to  how  spheres  go  forth  and  how  they 
suffer  waste,  I  pray  the  reader  to  examine  the  sec- 
tion "  How  do  Spheres  Emanate  ?"  pp.  46-49,  and 
pp.  56-58  of  the  foregoing  letter;  and  I  pray  the 
reader  to  compare  the  theory  there  set  forth  with 
the  theory  which  the  Ministers  next  set  forth  in 
words  and  figures  following,  to  wit ;  They  say  :] 


164 

Here  it  is  plainly  taught,  by  precept  and  by  illustra- 
tion, that  the  sun  of  heaven  though  first  spoken  of  in  a 
past  tense,  is  a  continual  creation ;  that  it  is  a  sphere  of 
substance  perpetually  going  forth  from  the  Lord,  and 
surrounding  him — that  is,  perpetually  created,  for  "  to 
proceed  from  the  infinite  is  to  be  created"  (D.  P.  219) ; 
and  consequently  it  is  spoken  of  also  in  the  present 
tense,  as  "  proceeding."  It  is  plainly  taught  here  by 
illustration,  that  as  with  an  angel  there  is  not  a  separ- 
ate sphere  of  his  life  of  affection  and  thought,  but  that 
the  sphere  of  substance  going  forth  is  actuated  by  the 
motions  of  the  two  fountains  of  his  life,  so  there  is  not 
a  separate  sphere  of  Divine  love  and  wisdom,  or  Divine 
life,  but  "  in  like  manner  "  the  sphere  of  substance  per- 
petually going  forth  from  the  Lord  is  perpetually  actuated 
by  His  life.  Thus  the  Divine  in  its  very  going  forth, 
and  by  going  forth,  creates  perpetually  the  substantial 
medium  which  it  actuates  and  through  which  it  pro- 
ceeds. And  this  is  true  of  the  Divine  in  all  its  goings 
forth,  through  successive  degrees,  down  to  the  last  and 
lowest  things  even  of  the  material  universe ;  for  this  is 
declared  to  be  "universal  in  living  and  in  dead  things." 
In  like  manner  as  the  spiritual  sun  is  a  sphere  of  sub- 
stance perpetually  going  forth,  so  are  the  spiritual  at- 
mospheres proceeding  from  that  sun;  and  these  are 
spoken  of  not  merely  in  a  past  tense,  as  having  pro- 
ceeded, but  as  proceeding.  Thus  in  D.  L.  W.  296,  it 
having  been  shown  that  heat  and  light  proceed  from 
that  sun,  we  are  told  that : 

The  third  thing  which  proceeds  from  that  sun  is  atmos- 
phere, which  is  the  containant  of  heat  and  light ;  and  this 
proceeds  from  the  Divine  of  the  Lord  which  is  called  use. 

And  so,  by  means  of  atmospheres  Divine  substance 


165 

is  represented,  in  the  present  tense,  as  proceeding 
downwards,  through  successive  degrees  of  finiteness,  to 
"  all  things  in  the  created  universe  "  : 

The  angels  say  there  is  only  one  substance  whence  all 
things  are,  and  that  the  sun  of  the  spiritual  world  is  that 
substance ;  .  .  .  and  that  that  one  only  substance,  which 
is  the  sun,  proceeding  by  means  of  atmospheres,  according 
to  continuous  degrees  and  at  the  same  time  according  to  dis- 
crete degrees,  presents  the  varieties  of  all  things  in  the  cre- 
ated universe.  (D.  L.  W.  300.) 

Again  in  the  present  tense  : 

The  atmospheres  in  both  worlds  decrease  in  their  down- 
ward progression,  and  become  continually  more  compressed 
and  inert,  and  finally  so  compressed  and  inert  that  they  are 
no  longer  atmospheres  but  substances  at  rest,  and  in  the 
natural  world  fixed  like  those  of  the  earth,  called  matter. 
(ib.  302.) 

The  substances  and  matters  of  which  earths  consist  are 
the  ends  and  terminations  of  atmospheres  which  proceed  as 
uses  from  the  spiritual  sun.  (ib.  310.) 

Again  : 

The  uses  of  all  things  created  ascend  by  degrees  from  the 
last  things  to  man,  and  through  man  to  God  the  Creator, 
from  whom  they  are,  as  was  shown  above  in  n.  65  to  68. 
Creation  continually  proceeds  to  this  last,  and  through  these 
three,  end,  cause,  and  effect ;  for  these  three  are  in  the  Lord 
the  Creator,  (ib.  170,  171.) 

In  n.  65,  which  the  author  himself  here  refers  to, 
"  the  last  things  "  are  defined  to  mean  "  all  things  of 
the  mineral  kingdom,  in  general  and  in  particular — 
which  are  matters  of  various  kinds,  stony,  saline,  oily, 
mineral,  metallic  substances,"  etc.  Passages  in  which 


166 

creation  is  thus  spoken  of  as  a  continuing  Divine  work 
might  be  multiplied  indefinitely. 

It  is  a  well  known  doctrine  of  physical  science, 
abundantly  demonstrated,  that  there  can  be  no  com- 
munication of  force  or  power  or  motion  without  a  sur- 
rounding medium  which  reacts  from  the  centre  or 
source  of  motion  ;  thus,  that  there  can  be  no  communi- 
cation of  sound,  or  of  light  and  heat,  without  atmos- 
pheres, as  vibrating  media,  to  receive  and  convey  the 
forms  or  modes  of  motion  that  are  cognized  in  the  sen- 
sation of  sound  or  sight  or  warmth.  But  a  too  implicit 
following  of  the  inductions  of  physical  science  into  the 
realm  of  spiritual  truth  may  be  very  misleading,  because 
physical  science  in  itself  has  no  knowledge  and  takes  no 
account  of  the  fact  that  there  is  a  spiritual  universe 
within  the  natural,  as  the  soul  in  its  body.  Physical 
science,  therefore,  assumes  that  the  atmospheres  and 
all  things  are  self-existent — and  so  eliminates  the  omni- 
presence of  the  Creator  from  the  creation.  It  does  not 
and  cannot  recognize  the  fact  that  the  Divine  Creator 
constantly  creates  from  Himself  the  media  through 
which  He  acts,  from  first  things  to  last.  Thus  to  follow 
a  science  that  is  spiritually  blind  into  the  realm  of 
spiritual  truth  leads  to  the  denial  of  truth  which  is 
fundamental  to  all  true  philosophy,  as  taught  in  the 
doctrines  of  the  New  Church. 

With  reference  to  such  irrational  theories,  Sweden- 
borg  says  : 

They  who  do  not  deduce  the  creation  of  the  universe  and 
all  things  thereof,  by  continual  mediations,  from  the  First, 
can  but  construct  broken  hypotheses  torn  from  their  causes — 
hypotheses  which  when  surveyed  by  a  mind  of  clearer  and 
deeper  vision  appear  not  as  houses,  but  as  heaps  of  rub- 
bish. (D.  L.  W.  303.) 


167 


The  signification  of  "  continual  mediations," 
viz.,  as  meaning  "  mediations  (or  middle  things) 
without  gap  or  cut-off  between  thing  and  thing," 
appears  from  the  antithesis  which  Swedenborg 
there  sets  forward,  viz.,  the  opposite  system  ;  in 
which  the  hypotheses  whereby  effect  is  traced  back 
to  its  cause,  and  whereby  that  cause  is  traced  still 
further  back  to  its  cause,  and  so  on  back  until  the 
first  cause  of  all  is  reached,  are  "  broken  "  apart 
from  each  other,  like  the  parted  links  of  a  broken 
chain,  and  thus  have  no  "  continual "  chain  of 
derivation,  because  the  links  are  broken  apart, 
and  because  effects  are  thus  torn  from  their 
causes.  That  this  "  continual  "  or  unbroken  chain 
of  causation  whereby  the  ultimate  effect  called 
creation  was  brought  about,  is  what  Sweden- 
borg refers  to  when  he  uses  here  the  word  "  con- 
tinual," and  that  he  does  not  mean  a  "  continual" 
repetition  of  the  once-performed  act  of  bringing 
the  ultimate  effect  about,  can  be  seen  in  the  fore- 
going letter,  in  the  section  on  "  Continual  Causes 
and  Continual  Mediations,"  pp.  35-42. 

The  Ministers  continue  their  Report  as  follows:] 

2.  It  ought  not  to  be  necessary  to  make  ^quotations 
to  prove  to  any  reader  of  the  writings  of  Swedenborg 
that  they  give  no  countenance  to  the  idea  that  the 
created  universe,  or  any  part  of  it,  exists  or  can  exist 
"  entirely  independent  of  Deity."  Such  passages  as 


168 

the  following,  which  are  not  unfrequent,  should  be  con- 
clusive : 

What  is  in  itself  is  uncreate  and  infinite ;  but  what  is  from 
Him  is  created  and  infinite,  because  it  carries  nothing  with 
it  that  is  in  itself.  (D.  L.  W.  52.) 

That  which  is  in  itself  is  very  esse,  from  which  all  things 
are  (ib.  76.) 

The  writings  abundantly  and  most  clearly  teach  that 
the  created  universe  exists  perpetually  as  an  effect  from 
the  creative  cause  ;  and  that  any  effect  disconnected — 
"  cut  off"  as  the  writer  affirms — from  its  cause  must 
instantly  cease  to  be.  For  example  : 

All  things  that  exist  in  the  world's  nature  (omnia  quae  in 
natura  mundi  existunt),  the  atmospheres  as  well  as  waters 
and  earths,  as  to  all  the  individual  things  of  them,  are  effects 
produced  from  the  spiritual  as  a  cause ;  and  the  effects  act  as 
one  with  the  cause,  and  are  entirely  concordant — according 
to  the  axiom  that  nothing  exists  in  the  effect  that  is  not  in  the 
cause.  But  the  difference  is  that  the  cause  is  a  living  force 
because  it  is  spiritual,  and  the  effect  from  it  is  a  dead  force 
because  natural.  (A.  E.  1207). 


The  Ministers  make  Swedenborg  say  that  the 
atmosphere,  waters,  etc.,  are  effects  produced  from 
the  spiritual  as  a  cause.  He  does  not  say  this. 
He  says  they  are  effects  which  WERE  produced 
from  the  spiritual  as  a  cause.  The  Latin  is 
" effectus producti"  not  " effectus  qui  producuntur" 
The  Latin  has  no  present  passive  participle. 
Where  Swedenborg  speaks  of  a  continuing 
creation  (as  in  the  living  world  he  does),  he  uses 
the  present  tense  passive — creatur,  creantur. 


169 

The    need    for  constant   struggle   in  matters    of 
elementary  learning  is  what  makes  the  discussion 
of  these  subjects  both  wearisome  and  hopeless. 
The  Ministers  proceed  as  follows :] 

The  force  of  creating  is  the  force  of  producing  causes  and 
effects  from  beginning  to  end :  and  it  goes  on  (pergit)  from 
the  First  through  intermediates  to  the  last.  The  first  is  the 
sun  itself  of  heaven,  which  is  the  Lord ;  intermediates  are 
things  spiritual,  afterwards  things  natural,  then  terrestrial 
— from  [all]  which  in  the  last  are  productions,  (ib.  1209.) 


The  force  of  pergit,  the  present  tense,  meaning 
"  goes  on,"  as  distinguished  from  the  past  tense, 
appears  from  the  subject  matter ;  which  is  the 
production  of  vegetable  forms  from  things  ter- 
restrial, but  not  the  production  of  mineral  atoms. 
As  the  Ministers  observe  above  (pp.  138,  139), 
"  To  be  rightly  understood,  the  passage  referred 
to  must  be  considered  in  its  relation  to  the 
general  subject  there  treated  of,  as  shown  by 
reference  to  the  preceding  sections.  *  *  *  The 
forms  of  use  below  these  "  productions,  i.  e.,  the 
forms  which  are  in  the  mineral  kingdom,  "  are  not 
receptive  of  life,  but  of  activities  from  life,  and 
are  not  here  treated  of." 

The  Ministers  continue  their  report  as  follows :] 


An  effect  is  a  continuance  of  the  cause,  and  if  the  cause 
ceases  the  effect  ceases;  and  hence  every  effect  without  a 
continual  influx  of  the  cause  vanishes  in  a  moment.  A  thing 


170 

disconnected  ["  cut  off"]  from  the  First  of  all,  that  is  from 
the  Divine,  falls  to  nothing  in  a  moment.     (A.  C.  5116.) 


Let  me  ask  the  reader  to  examine  again  upon 
this  point,  the  section  on  "  Continual  Causes  and 
Continual  Mediations,"  pp.  35-42  of  the  foregoing 
letter.  The  Ministers  continue  as  follows  :] 


3.  When  it  is  said,  in  these  and  very  many  other 
passages,  that  without  a  continual  influx  of  the  cause 
the  effect  "  vanishes  in  a  moment,"  or  as  expressed  in 
D.  L.  W.  152  is  "  instantly  dissolved,"  it  is  very  clear 
that  influx  of  life  into  organic  forms  is  not  meant,  as  the 
writer  affirms  ;  for  it  is  not  true  of  organic  forms  that 
they  "vanish  in  a  moment,"  or  are  " instantly  dis- 
solved "  when  life  is  withdrawn.  The  lifeless,  organic 
forms  continue  until  they  gradually  dissolve  ;  and  the 
less  soluble  portions  are  often  many  years,  sometimes 
ages,  in  process  of  dissolution. 


A  part  of  what  the  Ministers  says  is  true,  viz., 
that  "  the  lifeless  organic  forms  continue  until 
they  gradually  dissolve ;"  yet  it  is  not  true  that  the 
influx  of  life  into  organic  forms  is  not  here  meant 
by  Swedenborg.  And  it  is  not  true  that  the  influx 
of  life  into  inorganic  forms  is  meant.  It  is  in- 
deed, as  the  Ministers  say,  "  not  true  of  organic 
forms  that  they  vanish  in  a  moment,"  or  are  "  in- 
stantly dissolved  when  life  is  withdrawn."  But 
the  question  is  not  whether  the  organic  forms 
themselves  vanish,  but  whether  the  being  or  crea- 


171 

ture  which  is  a  living  being  or  living  creature  so 
long  as  the  life-beat  from  God's  Heart  and  Lungs 
beats  within  him,  vanishes  the  instant  that  Beat 
ceases,  so  that  no  longer  can  we  say  that  a  living 
being  or  living  creature  stands  there  before  us. 
I  affirm,  and  the  Ministers  deny,  that  when  a  horse, 
for  example,  dies,  the  horse  "  vanishes  in  a  mo- 
ment," and  is  "  instantly  dissolved,"  because  "  the 
life  is  withdrawn."  What  remains  is  not  a  horse, 
but  a  carcass,  which  only  formerly  was  a  horse. 
The  horse,  on  being  "  disconnected  from  the  First 
of  all,  that  is,  from  the  Divine,  falls  to  nothing  in 
a  moment,"  precisely  as  the  Ministers  cite  from 
A.  C.  n.  5116,  where  Swedenborg  lays  down  a  very 
different  doctrine  from  the  Ministers.  Had  they 
read  the  words  immediately  preceding  the  words 
they  cite,  they  would  thence  have  discovered 
that  the  subject  treated  of  in  that  passage,  is  the 
marvels,  not  of  mineral  substance,  but  of  vege- 
table life  ;  which  marvels,  says  Swedenborg,  pro- 
ceed from  the  spiritual  world.  The  words  which 
the  Ministers  cite  as  proving  constant  and  perpet- 
ual re-creation  of  mineral  atoms  are  addressed  by 
Swedenborg  expressly  to  those  non-believers  in 
the  Divine  who  attribute  to  Nature  all  the  won- 
ders of  vegetable  life.  Had  the  Ministers,  I  say, 
read  the  words  immediately  preceding  the  words 
they  quote,  they  would  have  seen  that  living  ex- 
istence is  the  existence  expressly  referred  to  ;  for 


172 

there,  in  speaking  of  the  representation  of  the 
Everlasting  and  Infinite  which  the  propagation 
and  multiplication  of  the  seeds  of  vegetables  ex- 
hibit, our  author  declares  that  "  PROPAGATION 
is  perpetual  creation."  Verily  we  see  what 
we  bring  eyes  to  see.  Those  who  seek 
the  spiritual  will  see  it  everywhere ;  and  those 
who  pursue  the  sensuous  will  find  everywhere  the 
sensuous  ;  and,  finding  it,  will  call  it  spiritual.  At 
the  instant  Pan  caught  the  fleeing  Syrinx,  that 
sweet  nymph  was  turned  suddenly  into  a  reed  in 
order  that  she  might  escape  ;  and  Pan  clutched 
the  reed  instead  of  herself ;  yet,  taken  no  whit 
aback,  he  clutched  it  stoutly,  and,  pufiing  after 
his  run,  heard  his  own  breath  wheezing  through 
the  reeds,  and  mistook  it  for  the  nymph,  and  cried 
out,  "  It  is  her  voice !"  For  Pan  at  this  time 
was  beside,  or  other  than,  himself  ;  forgetting  that 
Allfather  has  so  built  the  reed  as  that  it  may  not 
be  played  upon  from  without,  but  only  from 
within  ;  whence,  indeed,  Pan,  being  truly  godlike, 
was  wont  to  play  upon  it,  making  a  divine  melody 
which  is  the  actual  voice  of  Syrinx.  It  is  only 
from  within,  from  the  spiritual,  that  the  spiritual 
can  be  attained,  and  the  flaming  sword  of  sensuous 
Hankering  wheels  ever  hither  and  thither  and 
bars  the  way  to  the  Tree  of  Life.  The  Land  of 
Sparks  is  too  warm  and  bright  to  be  dwelt  in  by 
any  not  born  there,  and  Swart  sits  at  the  end  of 


173 

that  land,  with  sword  ablaze  in  hand,  and  keeps 
out  all  who  would  break  in. 

The  falsifications  to  which  the  doctrine  he  pro- 
claimed would  be  subjected,  were  foretold  by 
Swedenborg ;  but  his  reputed  followers  aver  that 
those  who  know  nothing  of  this  doctrine  are 
those  who  falsify  it. 

Let  me  refer  the  reader  to  pp.  91,  92,  93,  of  the 
foregoing  letter,  where  the  meaning  of  "  Perpetual 
Creation  "  is  treated  of,  and  where  the  sphere  of 
"  Conservation  "  is  treated  of. 

The  Ministers  further  say  as  follows  :] 


The  writer  of  the  memorial  has  endeavored  to  explain 
away  the  many  passages  where  it  is  taught  that  noth- 
ing except  God  is  self-existent,  and  that  nothing  can 
exist  for  a  moment  without  influx,  by  affirming  that 
"for  Swedenborg's  purpose,"  and  "  in  the  theological 
sense  "  inanimate  things  cannot  be  said  to  exist — that 
is, "  stand  forth " ;  that  Swedenborg  uses  the  terms 
" exist "  and  "  existence "  only  when  speaking  of  things 
that  are  forms  of  life.  This,  like  his  attempted  limita- 
tion of  omnia,  is  a  mere  invention.  There  is  abso- 
lutely no  ground  for  it  in  the  writings.  Swedenborg 
uses  the  term  "  exist"  freely,  without  any  such  limita- 
tion, as  in  A.  E.  1207,  where  he  says  that  atmospheres, 
waters  and  earths  "  exist,"  and  in  very  numerous  other 
cases  the  term  is  applied  equally  to  inanimate  and  ani- 
mate things.  But,  unfortunately  for  the  writer's  argu- 
ment, Swedenborg  does  not  always  use  the  term  "  ex- 
ist "  in  speaking  of  the  dependence  of  all  things 
upon  the  Divine.  In  many  instances,  as  in  D.  W.  L. 


174 

52   and    76,   above    cited,  he    says    "  be"    instead  of 
"  exist." 

To  answer  now  the  question  of  the  memorial :  It  can- 
not be  said  that  there  are  two  processes,  one  of  creation 
and  another  of  communication  of  life  ;  just  as  we  are 
taught  in  D.  L.  W.  291-294  above  quoted,  that  there 
are  not  two  spheres,  one  of  substance  and  another  of 
affection  and  thought  going  forth  from  an  angel  or  man, 
but  one  sphere  of  substance  actuated  by  affection  and 
thought.  We  are  told  that  the  sphere  of  substance 
continually  going  forth  from  the  Lord  and  constituting 
the  sun  of  heaven,  is  "  in  like  manner  "  from  Him — 
that  is,  not  two  spheres,  one  of  substance  and  another 
of  life,  but  one  sphere  of  substance  actuated  by  and 
conveying  the  Divine  life  of  love  and  wisdom.  Life,  in 
its  very  going  forth,  and  in  all  degrees  of  its  going 
forth,  continually  creates  the  substance  that  it  actuates 
and  the  forms  that  react  from  it,  just  as  the  substantial 
sphere  surrounding  an  angel  or  a  man  is  perpetually 
going  forth  from  him  and  is  perpetually  actuated  by 
the  two  motions  of  his  life.  The  Divine  sphere  of  sub- 
stance and  of  life  thus  goes  forth  perpetually  through 
successive  discrete  degrees  of  finiteness  down  to  the 
last ;  and  then  first  begins  the  return,  as  it  were,  of 
creation  to  its  Creator,  by  the  production  of  organic 
forms  of  higher  and  higher  uses,  looking  up  to  man, 
and  through  him  to  the  Divine  Creator  of  all  things, 
as  briefly  set  forth  in  the  following  passage  from  L. 
J.  9: 

Creation  began  from  the  highest  or  inmost,  because  from 
the  Divine,  and  went  forth  to  last  things  or  extremes  and 
then  first  subsisted.  The  last  creation  is  the  natural  world 
[or  universe]  (mundus  naturalis)  and  in  that  the  terraqueous 
globe  with  all  things  thereon.  When  these  were  finished 


175 

man  was  created,  and  into  him  were   gathered  all  things  of 
Divine  order,  from  first  things  to  last. 

And  just  as  the  universe  was  created,  we  are  taught 
that  it  is  sustained,  or  perpetually  created,  for  : 

To  create  is  not  only  to  cause  to  be,  but  also  to  cause  to 
be  perpetually,  by  continuation  and  sustentation,  by  the 
Divine  proceeding  (A.  E.  906). 

There  ends   the   Keport   of    the   Ministers. 

I  know  the  "  natural  "  man  must  feel  that  if 
God's  substance  be  excluded  from  the  profound 
interior  of  matter  and  of  spiritual  created  sub- 
stance, His  substance  cannot  exist  or  be  real ; 
there  being  then,  as  the  natural  man  thinks,  no 
substance  left  which  can  be  He.  I  know  he 
feels  thus  ;  yet  the  thing  cannot  be  helped.  God 
is  Life ;  and  from  all  created  substances  Life  was 
abstracted  in  their  creation  ;  thenceforward  noth- 
ing of  God  or  Life  remained  in  them.  There  is 
only  one  help  for  the  natural  man  who  wishes 
yet  to  believe  in  God.  It  lies  not  through  intellec- 
tual speculation.  It  lies  through  Repentance, 
which  consists  in  recurring  self-examination  by 
the  Ten  Divine  Laws,  and  in  ever-recurring 
amendment  of  the  inner  and  the  outer  life.  As 
this  progresses,  he  becomes  aware  of  other  sen- 
sations than  before.  A  new  world  opens  to  him. 
What  man,  born  blind,  deaf,  dumb,  numb  and 
without  taste  and  smell,  and  remaining  all  his  life 
in  that  condition,  would  not  swear  (if  he  could 


176 

reason),  that  none  of  the  realities  exist  which  all 
of  us  perceive  ?  Just  thus  is  it  with  those  who, 
like  myself  and  some  of  my  friends,  have  no  spirit- 
ual sensation.  Till  spiritual  sensation  in  some 
measure  be  attained,  I  know  of  no  help  for  the 
natural  man  but  this  which  Swedenborg  puts  for- 
ward :] 

"  Yet  because  it  is  in  but  very  feeble  measure  that  the 
natural  man  can  free  from  times  and  spaces  the  ideas  of  his 
thought,  the  best  way  for  a  simple-minded  man  is,  that  when 
he  is  thinking  about  God's  being  everywhere,  he  should  not 
think  from  the  reasoning  power  of  the  Intellect.  'Tis  better 
for  him  that  from  a  principle  of  religion  he  believe  these 
things  in  all  simplicity ;  and  if  he  gets  a-thinking  from  rea- 
son, let  him  say  to  himself  that  they  are  true,  because  they 
relate  to  God,  God  being  everywhere  and  being  without 
end ;  let  him  think,  too,  of  how  the  Word  teaches  this.  And 
if  from  Nature  and  Nature's  spaces  he  gets  a-thinking  about 
these  things,  let  him  say  to  himself  that  they  come  about  in 
some  miraculous  fashion : — Apoc.  l£xp.  n.  1220,  cont.  2. 


177 

A  MEMORANDUM  UPON  PART  IV  OP  THE  "  DIVINE 
LOVE  AND  WISDOM." 

The  Fourth  Part  of  the  "Divine  Love  and  Wisdom" 
treats  chiefly  of  how  the  subjects  of  the  vegetable  kingdom 
are  produced.  The  reason  why  most  readers  have  under- 
stood this  Part  to  be  a  treatise  on  the  creation  of  the  mineral 
kingdom  is  two-fold.  In  part  it  is  because  both  they  and  the 
translators  into  the  vernacular  in  which  this  author  has 
chiefly  been  read,  were  not  acquainted  with  the  scien- 
tific facts  involved  in  the  subject  matter ;  and  partly  it  is 
because  the  minds  of  his  readers  are  largely  steeped  in 
materialism.  They  use,  indeed,  many  words  involving  spirit- 
ual subjects  ;  but  largely  they  treat  these  in  a  materialistic 
fashion,  and  they  do  not  raise  their  eyes  above  mere  matter 
to  that  height  where  they  might,  if  they  would,  behold  the 
spiritual  element  which  is  discernible  in  material  forms, 
viz.,  the  arrangement  of  the  matters  in  those  forms,  although 
in  that  arrangement  an  infinite  wisdom  and  spirituality  are 
discernible.  And  if  they  do  raise  their  eyes  and  behold 
such  a  spiritual  arrangement  of  material  substances,  they 
nevertheless  are  dragged,  as  it  were,  toward  believing  that 
this  spiritual,  and  indeed  divine,  arrangement  is  induced 
upon  matter  from  matter's  interior ;  being  induced,  as  they 
think,  from  matter's  inmost.  In  the  inmost  of  matter  they  con- 
ceive the  Deity  to  reside ;  toward  believing  this  they  are,  as  it 
were,  interiorly  dragged.  Therefore  when  in  the  Fourth 
Part  of  this  wonderful  work  they  read  about  the  productions 
which  God  is  ever  making  upon  the  earth,  being  the  marvels 
of  vegetable  life — marvels  which  spring,  as  to  the  living 
element  in  their  composition,  not  from  the  sun  of  this 
world,  but  from  the  sun  of  minds — they  so  interpret  all  the 
things  they  read  in  Swedenborg,  that  they  understand 
him  to  be  treating  of  the  production,  not  of  these  marvels, 
or  not  of  these  marvels  alone,  but  of  the  accursed  dust  of 
matter  itself,  in  which  these  marvels  are  wrought ;  and  the 


178 
% 

continual  creation  of  living  things  concerning  which  Swed- 
enborg  treats,  they  debase  into  an  imagined  continual  re- 
creation of  mineral  atoms.  I  say  they  are,  as  it  were, 
dragged  down  toward  this  debasing  interpretation.  The 
reason  they  are  dragged  is  because  matter  is  to  them  quite 
obvious  and  real,  but  the  Divine  arrangement  of  any  material 
substance,  considered  as  mere  arrangement,  is  not  to  them 
so  obvious ;  and  to  them  the  spirituality  of  this  arrange- 
ment is  a  thing  vague  and  shadowy  and  unsubstantial.  If 
there  they  read  that  the  spiritual  is  in  the  natural,  they  can 
think  only  of  a  material  and  spatial  residence  of  the  spirit- 
ual within  the  natural ;  and  they  think  that  the  sense  in 
which  the  spiritual  is  visible  within  the  natural  is  that  the 
former  is  within  the  latter  just  as  wine  is  within  its  cask,  or 
as  a  man  lives  in  a  house  which  he  has  built.  If  you  remind 
them  that,  even  with  wine  and  its  cask,  no  particle  of  wine 
lies  within  any  particle  of  the  wood,  thus  that  the  substance 
of  the  wine  is  still  external  to  the  substance  of  the  cask, 
they  make  no  intelligible  reply.  If  you  tell  them  that  a 
house-builder  still  is  spiritually  visible  in  his  house  at  the 
very  moment  when  he  is  a  thousand  miles  away  from  it ;  that 
is  to  say,  if  you  tell  them  that  he  is  in  it  by  virtue  of  his 
desires  and  intelligence  having  shaped  forth  the  house,  and 
by  virtue  of  their  so  impressing  themselves  upon  its  form  and 
structure  as  to  be  discernible  in  the  house,  they  will  not  listen, 
because  you  now  are  speaking  of  spiritual  things,  viz.,  of 
affection  and  intelligence ;  and  these  two  last  do  not  seem  to 
them  obvious  as  matter  is.  They  wrest  Swedenborg  into  a 
confirmation  of  their  notions ;  and  they  indeed  are  often 
able  thus  to  wrest  him.  The  reason  why  they  often  thus 
can  wrest  him  is,  that  although  when  he  mentions  Creation 
he  is  almost  always  treating  of  the  living  creation — this  latter 
creation  alone  being  the  end  and  object  and  sole  original 
motive  of  the  creation  of  matter — he  nevertheless  does  oc- 
casionally refer  to  the  creation  both  of  the  mere  substances 
^which  belong  to  the  spiritual  universe  and  of  the  mere  mat- 


179 

ters  which  belong  to  the  material  universe,  quite  apart  from 
ihe  forms  which  these  substances  may  from  time  to  time 
take  on  ;  and  he  represents  the  substances  of  the  spiritual  uni- 
verse as  having  been  formed  by  composition  and  re-com- 
position from  the  substance  of  the  spiritual  sun ;  and  he 
represents  material  substance  as  having  been  formed  by  the 
composition  and  re-composition  of  spiritual  substances  ;  thus 
he  represents  the  substance  of  matter  as  having  been 
originally  derived  from  the  spiritual  world.  In  this  way  he 
represents  the  spiritual  as  having,  when  matter  was  created, 
furnished  the  internal  substance  of  matter.  But  his  readers 
mostly  fail  to  observe  that  the  origin  of  matter  as  thus  traced 
by  Swedenborg,  is  an  origin  which  was  achieved  only  once 
and  in  the  beginning,  and  which  need  not  be  re-achieved  and 
cannot  be  re-achieved ;  and  they  mostly  fail  to  comprehend 
that  it  was  only  by  an  alteration  of  its  nature  and  quality 
that  any  spiritual  substance  could  be  converted  into  natural 
matter  ;  and  they  fail  to  understand  that  substances  that  have 
been  thus  converted  are  no  longer  that  which  they  were,  but 
are  only  that  which  upon  such  conversion  they  did  become ; 
thus  they  fail  to  understand  that  there  is  no  longer  a  whit 
of  the  spiritual  within  the  natural,  in  the  sense  of 
remaining  spiritual  and  yet  constituting  the  composing 
elements  of  the  natural,  or  of  constituting  the  composing 
elements  of  matter.  And  when  you  remind  them  that 
Swedenborg  describes  those  substances  which  still  remain 
spiritual,  as  surrounding  or  be-girding  natural  substance 
(D.  L.  W.,  nn.  158,  175)  and  as  acting  upon  natural  sub- 
stance from  without  (D.  L.  W.,  n.  260),  they  know  not  what 
to  answer,  and  only  mumble  something  unintelligible. 

They  cannot  conceive  of  spiritual  substance  as  being  real 
unless  by  virtue  of  being  something  conceived  to  lie  with- 
in material  substance,  and  conceived  as  making  up  material 
substance ;  and  the  reason  why  they  cannot  conceive  other- 
wise is,  because  their  minds  are  tied  down  to  what  is  ma- 
terial. They  cannot  conceive  that  any  spiritual  substance 


180 

should  exist  by  itself ;  and  even  if  they  bring  themselves  to 
believe  that  material  substance  has  been  created  by  a  re- 
composition  from  spiritual  substance,  they  think  they  must, 
at  the  same  time,  believe  that  all  spiritual  substance  has 
been  thus  converted  into  natural  substance.  This,  however, 
is  much  the  same  as  if  a  man  should  believe  that  since  all  ice 
has  been  composed  from  water,  therefore  there  can  be  no 
water  unless  such  as  is  potentially  contained  in  the  formation 
called  ice ;  and  it  is  much  the  same  as  if  a  man  should  be. 
lieve  that  because  the  formation  called  water  has  been  com- 
posed from  steam  or  vapour,  therefore  there  can  be  no  steam 
or  vapour  except  such  as  may  lie  potentially  contained  in  the 
formation  called  water ;  in  other  words,  it  is  as  if  a  man 
should  believe  that  steam  and  water  and  ice  cannot  exist 
each  for  itself  and  by  itself.  It  is  also  the  same  as 
if,  because  a  particle  of  some  gas  is  composed  of  still 
finer  particles,  a  man  should  believe  that  there  are  none 
of  those  finer  particles  but  such  as  have  already  been 
formed  into  gaseous  particles ;  in  this  way  such  a  man 
might  deny  the  existence  of  the  ether  which  never- 
theless lies  in  between  the  several  particles  of  a  gas. 
In  the  same  manner — if  we  trace  still  further  back  the  pro- 
cess of  composition — such  a  man  may  deny  that  any  portion 
of  spiritual  substance  exists  except  such  portions  as  have 
already  been  composed  into  natural  or  material  substance. 
For  his  thoughts  are  tied  down  to  material  substance,  and 
where  material  substance  is  not,  he  conceives  that  nothing 
can  be.  He  is  like  those  unintelligent  ones  described  by 
Swedenborg  (Conjugal  Love,  n.  207)  who,  considering  the 
spiritual  to  be  quite  apart  from  the  material — as  in  all  right 
thinking  they  must  indeed  consider  it — could  not  conceive  of 
the  spiritual  as  other  than  a  mere  vacuity  and  nothingness, 
because  they  were  considering  the  spiritual  apart  from  the 
material ;  for  they  could  not  understand  that  spiritual  sub- 
stance is  the  very  stuff  or  filling  (plenitudo)  whence  all  the 
stuffs  in  matter  got  their  origin ;  hence  they  were  aston- 


181 

ished  to  know  of  such  things  as  books  and  paper  and  ink 
and  pens  in  the  world  of  Spirit — all  consisting  of  spiritual 
substance  thrown  into  those  forms.  Such  men,  if  with  the 
mouth  they  say  they  believe  that  spiritual  substance  exists, 
still  conceive  that,  if  real,  it  must  be  within  material  sub- 
stance, and  must  be  only  those  portions  thereof  that  have 
been  formed  into  material  substance ;  hence  they  believe 
that  when  the  human  body  dies  and  the  particles  which 
compose  it  are  dissipated,  there  is  no  substance  remaining 
to  man,  and  consequently  no  form  remaining  to  him ;  or  if 
they  say  that  some  substance  remains,  they  cannot  conceive 
that  it  has  a  form,  viz.,  the  human :  in  this  they  are  like 
their  fellows  who  say  there  is  a  substantial  God,  yet  deny 
Him  any  Form,  and  above  all  deny  Him  the  human  form ; 
not  perceiving  that  a  substance  or  essence  that  has  no  form 
is  but  an  entity  existing  only  in  the  reasoner's  reasoning 
mind  (Conjugal  lave,  n.  315).  Such  a  man,  if  his  thoughts 
were  all  concordant,  would  seek  in  the  atoms  of  the  carcass  the 
substances  of  the  surviving  spiritual  body ;  would  seek  those 
substances  there,  after  the  body's  death,  just  as  he  claims 
to  find  them  in  those  atoms  whilst  the  body  still  lives.  And 
some  conceive,  or  speak  as  if  they  conceived,  that  the  fine  or 
gaseous  stuff  into  which  solids  and  fluids  change  their  form 
when  under  the  influence  of  heat,  is  other  than  matter,  and 
is  Substance  in  a  spiritual  sense  of  the  word ;  and  conceive 
that  the  supposed  spirituality  of  this  fine  substance  is  what 
gives  matter  its  substantiality.*  And  when  in  Swedenborg 


*  "  If,  however,  we  seek  for  substance  in  matter,  rather  than  in 
the  spiritual  or  mental  creation  which  it  represents  to  our  senses, 
we  shall  surely  fail  to  find.  *  *  *  As  for  substance,  there  is  nothing 
discoverable  in  matter  which  is  not  destructible,  evanescent  and 
changing.  *  *  *  The  totality  of  matter  as  now  existing  *  *  * 
in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye  *  *  *  vanishes  away  in  the  changes 
that  are  every  instant  occurring  throughout  the  whole  physical 
universe.  All  that  remains  unchanged,  undiminishcd,  unimpaired 


182 

such  men  read  of  the  spiritual  as  being  ' -interior''  to  the 
natural  or  material,  they  instantly  suppose  he  means  that  the 
spiritual  is  presently  within  the  natural  or  the  material,  in  the 
sense  of  being  the  composing  element  of  the  natural  or  ma- 
terial ;  and  they  do  not  perceive  that  when  Swedenborg  says 


*  as  a  whole,'  is  not  matter  but  it  is  substance,  that  alone  from 
which  matter  borrows  its  ever-changing  being  :  "—The  New  Meta- 
physics, pp.  70,  71. 

If  after  a  decomposable  object  suffers  decomposition  or  sublima- 
tion into  gaseous  particles,  what  still  remains  of  that  object  is 
Substance,  as  Mr.  Sewall  seems  to  admit ;  and  if  this  remaining 
substance  is,  as  he  admits  and  alleges,  "  that  alone  from  which 
Matter  borrows  its  ever-changing  being ;  "  and  if  nevertheless,  as 
Mr.  Sewall  alleges,  "we  shall  surely  fail  to  find  "  any  "  substance  in 
Matter  ;  "—if  all  these  things  are  true,  it  must  still  be  true  that  the 
14  substance"  which  Mr.  Sewall  (in  common  with  us  all)  finds  in 
Matter,  after  Matter's  "  vanishing  away  in  the  changes  that  are 
every  instant  recurring  throughout  the  whole  physical  universe '  * 
(which  Substance,  he  says,  is  "that  alone  from  which  matter 
borrows  its  ever-changing  being,")— it  must  still  be  true,  I  say,  that 
the  still  remaining  "  substance  "  is  either  (1)  a  spiritual  substance, 
or  (2)  a  material  substance.  If  it,  is  a  spiritual  substance,  then 
(according  to  Mr.  Sewall)  the  ordinary  processes  of  sublimation 
into  gases  would  convert  matter  into  spiritual  substance.  But  if 
this  substance  which  survives  sublimation  remains  notwithstanding 
as  merely  material  as  before  its  sublimation,  and  if  yet  it  is  "  that 
alone  from  which  matter  borrows  its  never-changing  being,"  we 
cannot  by  any  possibility  need  for  Matter  that  constant  and  steady 
re-begetting  by  virtue  of  a  "spiritual  or  mental  creation"  which  Mr. 
Sewall  and  his  brethren  divine.  It  is  fair  to  Mr.  Sewall,  however,  to 
suggest,  as  his  possible  inference,  that  when  an  apple,  for  instance, 
decays  and  becomes  invisible  (experiencing  one  of  * '  the  changes 
that  are  every  instant  occurring  throughout  the  whole  physical 
universe),"  the  substance  of  the  apple,  after  it  has  turned  into  gas, 
does  not  cease  there  its  sublimatory  change,  but  then  further  turns 
into  spiritual  substance,  reaching  thus  that  state  of  '  *  Substance ; 
that  alone  from  which  Matter  borrows  its  ever-changing  being." 

Nearly  similar  to  Mr.  Sewall's  theory  is  that  of  Mr.  Warren  (Mat- 
ter-.— Am.  N.  C.  T.  and  Pub.  Soc.,  J.  B.  Lippincott  Co.,  Phil.). 


183 

that  the  spiritual  is  within  the  natural  and  within  the  ma- 
terial, he  means  that  the  activities  of  certain  spiritual 
substance,  which  also  is  present,  take  effect  upon  natural 
and  material  substances,  bringing  natural  and  material 
substances  into  a  form  or  arrangement  corresponding 
to  spiritual  forms;  thus  that  the  sense  in  which  the 


Similar  is  Mr.  Giles'  theory  (Nature  of  Spirit,  7th  Edition).  He 
say'd  (pp.  21,  22)  :  "  The  planets  are  carried  around  in  their  orbits 
by  a  spiritual  force.  We  very  properly  call  it  attraction,  but  attrac- 
tion is  only  the  name  of  the  effect.  The  real  force  is  spiritual.  *  *  * 
Wherever  you  see  action  *  *  *  you  may  infer  that  spiritual 
forces  are  present.  *  *  *  It  is  said  that  the  changes  and  motions 
which  are  continually  taking  place  in  matter  are  caused  by  the  light 
and  heat  of  the  sun.  This  is  true  in  one  sense.  Heat  acts  on  a 
certain  plane  and  to  some  extent.  But  it  is  a  spiritual  substance 
within  the  heat  which  causes  the  heat.  *  *  *  The  sun  itself  IS" — 
the  capitalizing  is  not  Mr.  Giles* — "  created  from  the  spiritual  world, 
and  its  magnetic  forces  and  ever-radiating  heat  are  perpetually  fed 
from  it.  *  *  *  Wherever  there  is  matter  there  is  spirit."  Simi- 
lar is  Mr.  Grindon's  theory  in  his  otherwise  noble  book  on  "Life, 
its  Nature  and  Varieties."  He  says  (pp.  12,  14,  23,  6th  Am.  Ed.)  : 
u  Life  in  its  proper,  generic  sense,  is  the  name  of  the  sustaining 
principle  by  which  everything  out  of  the  Creator  subsists,  whether 
worlds,  metals,  minerals,  trees,  animals,  mankind,  angels  or  devils. 
*  *  *  Nothing  is  absolutely  lifeless,  though  many  things  are 
relatively  so.  *  *  *  Strictly  speaking  every  atom  of  the  con- 
stituent matter  of  our  globe  is  alive.  *  *  *  Matter  is  not  a 
hearth  existing  anteriorly  to  life,  and  independently  of  life,  and 
upon  which  the  flame  of  life  is  sometimes  kindled.  In  its  very 
simplest  and  crudest  forms  it  is  a  sign  that  the  flame  is  already 
burning.  *  *  *  Life  does  not  necessarily  imply  organization  or 
reproduction." 

Into  such  frightful  confounding  of  the  Spiritual  and  the  Material 
are  plunged  those  admirers  of  Swedenborg,  who,  all-ignorant  of 
his  Science  and  partly  ignorant  of  his  Theology — all-ignorant  and 
partly  ignorant,  as  it  seems  to  me  (yet  I  also  am  little  better  than 
ignorant)— think  to  embrace  both  his  Science  and  his  Theology  in 
mere  expressions,  in  expressions  not  answering  to  any  visible  fact 
in  the  world  of  Nature. 


184 

spiritual  is  within  the  natural  and  material  is,  that  the 
spiritual  substance  present  brings  about,  and  constantly 
maintains,  the  form  in  which  natural  and  material  sub- 
stances are  found,  when  found  in  living  creatures;  and 
brings  about  (and  maintains)  that  form,  solely  by  virtue  of 
pulses  of  force  in  the  spiritual  ether,  to  which  pulses  a 
spiritual  substance  alone  is  capable  of  beating.  For  when 
such  men  hear  the  words  "within3'  and  "without,"  they 
think  only  of  a  spatial  inwardness  and  of  a  spatial 
outwardness;  and  it  is  impossible  for  them  to  realize 
what  Swedenborg  says  when  he  declares  that  with  the 
higher  intelligences  the  spatial  notions  of  "inward'' 
and  "outward"  disappear,  and  in  their  place  are  sub- 
stituted the  notions  of  Cause  and  Effect;  the  inward 
being  the  Cause  and  the  outward  being  the  Effect; 
thus  such  men  cannot  understand  that  the  spiritual  is  said 
to  be  "  interior  "  to  a  material  living  form,  in  the  sense — and 
in  the  sole  sense — that  it  causes  that  form  to  be  brought 
about  originally  and  also  maintains  such  form  as  long  as 
such  form  continues. 

There  is  somewhat  of  the  spiritual  still  dwelling  within  the 
natural,  only  where  the  natural  is  a  thing  of  which  the 
maintenance  depends  upon  a  steady  supply  from  the  spirit- 
ual ;  but  even  there,  the  spiritual  is  within  the  creature  only 
when  the  creature  is  taken  merely  as  a  whole  /  and  it  is  not 
within  any  atom  of  the  material  substance,  as  composing 
or  making  up  that  atom.  Within  every  living  creature 
there  are  natural  or  material  substances  and  there  are  also 
spiritual  substances  ;  but  no  atom  of  the  one  resides  within 
any  atom  of  the  other ;  yet  that  the  spiritual  is  within  the 
creature  is  plain  from  this,  viz.,  if  the  spiritual  ceases  to  be 
within  it,  the  creature's  molecules  slowly  part  company  with 
each  other ;  the  spiritual  had  been  within  the  creature  and 
had  caused  the  creature,  considered  as  a  unity ;  but  had  not 
been  within  the  atoms  of  its  natural  substance,  nor  (except 
at  the  creation  of  natural  substances,  at  the  beginning  of  all 


185 

things)  had  it  composed  or  made  up  that  substance.  Thus  the 
spiritual  is  in  the  natural  in  all  things  that  are  living ;  and 
as  soon  as  the  spiritual  departs  from  such  things,  such  things 
perish  instantly.  But  in  these  things  so  perishing,  it  is  not 
that  any  substance  perishes;  it  is  that  the  living  form 
perishes  ;  the  perishing  is  a  perishing  of  form,  not  of  sub- 
stance ;  and  the  reason  the  form  perishes  is  that  the  creature 
requires  a  steady  sustenance  and  effort  from  the  spiritual,  in 
order  that  it  may  be  preserved  in  the  form  or  arrangement 
of  its  substance ;  but  the  substance  itself  does  not  require 
any  such  sustenance  or  effort. 

The  Fourth  Part  of  the  "  Divine  Love  and  Wisdom  "  is 
found  full  of  wisdom  if  several  things  be  kept  in  mind. 

Let  me  simply  name  them  ;  there  is  no  time  now  to  prove 
them. 

1.  As  said  above,  the  subject  treated  of  is  the  production 
of  animal  and  vegetable  forms.  This  production  is  described 
as  owing  to  "  influx  "  ;  to  influx  from  the  spiritual  world. 
Our  author  suggests  nowhere,  either  here  or  elsewhere  in 
his  works,  so  far  as  I  am  acquainted  with  them,  any  influx 
from  the  spiritual  world,  save  into  the  forms  of  animal  and 
vegetable  life ;  provided,  of  course,  that  we  reckon  among 
animals  all  beings  really  higher  than  animals.  It  is  true 
that  in  two  or  three  places  he  speaks  of  an  effort  which  pro- 
duces minerals ;  but  he  takes  care  to  say  that  the  minerals 
so  produced  are  produced  from  the  earth  itself,  and  are  or 
have  been  produced  by  condensations  from  gases  or  vapors 
in  the  earth.  At  n.  340  he  treats  of  the  produc- 
tion of  vegetables  and  animals,  and  says  that 
the  marvels  of  these  productions  proceed  from 
the  Lord  through  the  sun  of  the  spiritual  world,  and  that 
the  earth  merely  furnishes  the  matters  with  which  they  are 
stuffed  or  filled  out  in  the  world  of  nature  ;  and  he  says  that 
from  these  productions  it  may  be  seen  that  there  is  a  con- 
tinual influx  from  the  spiritual  world  into  the  natural  world. 
And  at  n.  346  he  says  that  the  forms  upon  which  an  opera- 


186 

tion  by  influx  takes  place  are  twin  or  twain  (bince),  to  wit, 
the  vegetable  form  and  the  animal  form.  At  n.  356  he  Bays 
that  the  "  Lord,  from  Himself,  by  means  of  the  spiritual 
world,  operates  (operetur)  all  things  that  exist  in  nature." 
In  his  book  on  Metaphysics  Mr.  Sewall  (p.  52)  interprets 
this  as  a  declaration  that  the  atoms  of  the  mineral  kingdom 
owe  their  continued  reality  to  the  continuance  of  this  oper- 
ation ;  and  Prof.  Le  Conte  in  his  book  on  Evolution  and  its 
Relation  to  Religious  Thought  (p.  271,  lower  half  ;  p.  282), 
following,  no  doubt,  the  translators  who  have  distorted 
Swedenborg,  interprets  these  words  in  the  same  sense  as 
Mr.  Sewall. 

The  words  of  Swedenborg  do  not  have  this  meaning. 
What  he  says  is,  "  These  things,  and  others  besides,  are 
outstanding  proofs  that  the  Lord,  from  Himself,  by  means 
of  the  spiritual  world,  works  (operetur)  all  things  that  are 
alive  (existunt)  in  nature." 

What  are  "  these  things  and  others,"  which  Swedenborg 
says  are  outstanding  proofs  ?  At  n.  349  he  begins  to  relate 
these  proofs ;  and  at  the  passage  which  I  have  quoted  (n. 
356)  he  gets  done  with  relating  them.  At  n.  349  where,  as 
I  have  said,  he  begins  to  relate  them,  he  starts  with  this 
proposition,  viz.,  "  That  things  which  can  be  seen  in  the 
created  universe  bear  witness  that  nature  never  did  produce 
anything  and  does  not  produce  anything ;  but  that  the 
Divine,  from  Himself,  by  means  of  the  spiritual  world,  did 
and  does  produce  all  things.  And  then  he  fetches  up  his 
proofs ;  and  each  of  them  is  a  proof  adduced  from  vegetable 
life  or  else  from  animal  life,  and  none  of  them  relates  to  the 
mineral  kingdom.  I  shall  not  rehearse  these  proofs.  He 
rehearses  them  again  in  the  True  Christian  Religion,  at 
n.  12,  and  makes  substantially  the  same  comments.  In  re- 
citing them,  he  calls  attention  to  (1)  the  WISDOM  of  their 
construction ;  (2)  the  USE  of  their  construction ;  (3)  the 
AFFECTION  they  display ;  (4)  the  KNOWLEDGE  they  display  ; 
(5)  the  quasi  PRESCIENCE  they  display  ;  (6)  their  SYMBOLISM. 


187 

These  qualities  mark  them  as  productions  from  a  thinking 
and  intelligent  Being ;  these  are  proofs  of  their  origin. 

He  says  that  animal  and  vegetable  wonders  are  proofs. 
Proofs  of  what  ?  Proofs,  he  says,  that  the  Lord  works  all 
things  in  nature.  Proofs,  he  says,  not  mere  grounds  for 
guessing,  however  shrewdly.  Proofs,  auctoramenta,  things 
written  or  engraved  in  durable  substance.  Now  does 
proof  that  the  construction  and  operation  of  animal  and 
vegetable  life  involve  and  demand  a  spiritual  intelligence 
and  wisdom  such  as  reside  neither  in  the  mechani- 
cal vibrations  of  the  particles  of  the  dead  ethereal  atmos- 
phere, nor  in  the  wild  kinetic  hurtling  of  the  particles  of 
the  aereal  atmosphere— does  proof  of  this,  I  ask,  stand  as  proof 
that  the  Lord  constantly  recreates  the  vile  matters  which 
merely  serve  these  spiritual  marvels  as  material  with  which 
to  be  stuffed  and  filled  out  in  fixed  and  durable  form  ?  (D. 
L.  W.,  n.  315,  310,  340,  344).  Proof,  perhaps  we  may  say, 
that  the  Lord,  from  Himself,  by  means  of  the  spiritual 
world,  did  at  the  first  or  in  the  beginning  bring  about  even 
the  material  atoms  of  the  universe  ;  because  the  wonders  of 
which  these  proofs  consist,  suggest  an  end  or  purpose  for 
making  the  mineral  atoms ;  thus  suggest  that  the  steady 
Author  of  those  wonders,  is  one  and  the  same  Being  with 
Him  who  once  did  make  the  atoms  of  the  mineral  world ; 
but  assuredly  not  proof  that  instead  of  once  for  all  creating 
those  atoms,  the  Lord  creates  them  each  moment,  or  con- 
stantly re-creates  them,  as  the  Ministers  and  the  most  of  the 
present  Swedenborgians  assert. 

2.  In  treating  of  the  causes,  and  of  the  manner,  of 
vegetable  production,  Swedenborg  contemplates  two  worlds 
as  being  present,  each  world  having  its  own  elements,  and 
each  world  furnishing  somewhat  to  the  plan.  The  elements 
which  belongs  to  the  spiritual  world  he  calls  substances 
(substantiae) ;  and  the  elements  which  belongs  to  the  world 
of  nature  he  calls  matters  (materiae).  Of  this  use  of  words 


188 

there  are  illustrations  at  nn.  302,  303,  305,  310,  315,  340, 
343,  344. 

3.  Since  the  two  worlds  are  present  together  in  the  mak- 
ing of  these  productions,  Swedenborg  treats  together,  or  all 
in  one,  or  with  double  application  of  his  words,    these  two 
distinct  elements,  viz. ;  "  substances,"  meaning  spiritual  sub- 
stances;   and    "matters,"    meaning    material    substances. 
Since  he  treats  of  them  both  in  one  breath,  it  is  necessary  to 
keep  them  well  apart  in  mind ;  as  far  apart  indeed  as  the 
spiritual,  in  its  essence,  is  apart  from  the  material.     He 
treats  of  these  two  kinds  of  material  as  in  pairs ;  and  he  tells 
of  how  the  higher  of  the  pair,  consisting  of  spiritual  sub- 
stance, has  been  derived  from  the  sun  of  the  spiritual  world. 
By  parity  of  reasoning,  which  he  evidently  presumes  the 
reader  will  carry  on  without  reminder,  the  material  elements 
which  he  calls  "  matters "  can  be  understood  to  have  been 
derived  from  the  sun  of  nature,  through  mediations  from 
finer  to  coarser  by  discrete  degrees,   i.   e.,   progressing,  or 
rather  retrogressing,  from  the  gaseous  form  to  the  liquid 
form,  and  from  the  liquid  form  to  the  solid  form,  all  accord, 
ing  to  the  principles  of  composition  and  re-composition  by 
discrete  degrees  ;  which  principles  hold  good  alike  in  either 
world. 

4.  The  "  matters  "  which  he  speaks  of  as  being  in  the  soil, 
and  which  are  all  material  and  which  form  the  soil,  are  only 
a  small  portion  of  the  visible  layer  of  so-called  soil ;  as  is  well 
known  to  botanists. 

5.  The  finest    natural  material  he  sometimes  dignifies 
with  the  name  of  substance  itself ;  as  where,  for  example,  at 
n.  174,  he  calls  by  the  name  of  "  substances  "  the  particles  of 
the  natural  atmosphere. 

6.  He  seems  also  to  apply  occasionally  the  name  "  mat- 
ters "  to  spiritual  substances  which  have  been  so  clotted  or 
conglomerated  with  each  other,  or  been  brought  into  such 
intimate  connection  with  matters  of  natural  origin,   as  to 
have    lost   the  proper  designation  of  strict  "substances." 


189 

An  example  of  this  is  at  n.  305,  where  he  traces  the  origin  of 
at  least  some  of  the  "  substances  and  matters  from  which 
are  derived  the  soils " ;  and  he  says  that  these  substances 
and  matters  were  derived  from  the  spiritual  sun.  But  he 
does  not  mean  that  from  this  original  (without  having 
mediately  been  fashioned  into  the  natural  solar  body,  or 
without  having  been  thrown  off  from  that  body  when 
the  earth  was  thrown  off)  come  all  the  substances  and 
matters  which  go  to  make  up  even  the  soil  proper. 
For  at  n.  313  he  refers  to  other,  or  partly  other,  sub- 
stances and  matters  from  which  the  soil  is  derived;  and  he 
there,  at  n.  313,  refers  evidently  and  in  part,  to  the  various 
worn-down  particles  of  rock,  etc.,  of  which  the  soil  is  known 
to  be  in  part  composed. 

7.  The  substances  which  are  of  spiritual  origin  in  the  soil 
do  not  lie  within  the  atoms  of  material  origin  which  are  in 
the  soil ;  but  the  two  are  perfectly  distinct ;  and  at  n.  310  he 
tells  how,  after  the  seeds  are  "opened"  by  the  sun's  heat, 
they  are  impregnated  with  very  subtle  substances  which  he 
says  must  be  of  spiritual  origin ;  and  says  that  then  there  is 
a  conjunction  with  matters  of  natural  origin,  and  that  those 
forms  of  use  which  are  vegetables  are  thence  produced. 

8.  What  he  calls  substances  and  matters  in  the  soil,  in- 
clude also  the  various  gases  sublimated  from  the  soil,  such  as 
carbon,  nitrogen,  etc.;  these  are  what  he  refers  to  as  exhala- 
tions from  the  soils  into  the  atmosphere,  at  n.  310.     In 
treating  of  these  things  it  must  be  remembered  all  along 
that  he  treats  of  both  worlds  in  one  breath.     In  the  corres- 
ponding passages  in  the  Apocalypse  Explained,  n.  1203  to 
n.  1215,  on  the  contrary,  he  deals  mostly  with  the  soils  and 
atmospheres  of  the  spiritual  world  alone,  and  with  the  vege- 
table productions  in  that  world  alone.     In  treating  of  vege- 
table production  in  the  natural  world,  these  two  elements — the 
spiritual  and  the  natural — must  of  necessity  be  treated  of 
together  or  combined ;  but  this  necessity  creates  a  risk  of 
much  confusion. 


190 

9.  In  this  Part  IV,  his  terrae,  which  the  translators  have 
confounded  with  the  substance  of  the  earth  itself,  and  which 
some  of  them  have  confounded  with  the  earth-ball,  or  with 
the  various  planetary  earth-balls  (Mr.  Sewall,  for  example ; 
The  New  Metaphysics,  pp.  58,  59),  means  "  soil  "  and  only 
soil.    At  n.  314  he  speaks  of  the  tellurem  investitam  terris — 
the  earth-ball  clad  with  the  soil. 

10.  The  spiritual  is  not  a  mere  thought  or  a  mere  desire ; 
although  most  men  so  believe ;  but  it  consists  of  substances. 
Thought  and  desire  are  merely  changes  of  form  in  certain 
portions  of  the  total  amount  of  spiritual  substance,  viz., 
changes  of  form  in  certain  organized  portions  of  such  sub- 
stance.    Spiritual  substance  no   more  consists  of  thought 
and  desire  than  the  material  world  consists  of  the  gray 
matter  in  the  brain.     The  reason  why  men  have  imagined 
that  spiritual  substance  is  limited  to  thought  and  desire,  is 
that  only  in  thought  and  desire  do  men  in  this  world  appre- 
hend the  spiritual ;  and  they  limit  the  spiritual,  of  course, 
to  those  fields  in  which  they  have  experienced  it.     Spiritual 
substance  is  equally  real  with  natural  substance.     It  is  dif- 
ferent, indeed ;  but  it  is  a  simple,  or  comparatively  a  simple ; 
and  it  is  from  assemblages  of  it  that  what  we  know  as  matter 
is  a  compound.  And  every  compound  is  different  from  the  sim- 
ples of  which  it  is  composed ;  thus  the  compound  of  oxygen 
and  hydrogen  which  is  known  as  water  is  different  from  the 
simples  of  which  it  is  compounded.     Nor  like  each  other 
were  any  two  of  the  spiritual  simples  which  entered  into  and 
formed  an   atom  of  material   substance.     No  two  atoms, 
be  they  spiritual  or  otherwise,  can  be  alike ;  for  they  came 
from  the  Infinite. 

"  Not  a  single  form,"  says  Swedenborg,  "  nor  even  a  single 
particle,  is  altogether  like  another ;  that  is,  so  like  another  that 
it  can  be  substituted  for  that  other  without  some  par- 
ticular alteration  (absque  aliqua  alteratione),  though  it 
might  be  but  a  trifling  alteration." — Arc.  Cod.  n.  3745. 
Hence  the  compounding,  called  matter,  of  some  of  such 


191 

various  simples,  may  well  differ  from  any  of  its  sim- 
ples ;  as  for  example  as  to  weight  and  size,  dead  fixity, 
etc.,  and  yet  not  differ  from  its  simples  in  having  different 
from  them  the  qualities  of  substance,  shape  and  reality ;  in 
other  words,  those  last  three  qualities  can  belong  to  spiritual 
substance  just  as  they  belong  to  material  substance,  although 
they  may  not  be  obvious  to  corporeal  sensation. 

Substance,  Form  and  Change  of  Form  must  be  kept 
well  apart  in  thought.  A  profound  change  of  Form  in 
any  assemblage  of  substances,  makes  a  new  thing  of  that 
assemblage ;  and  of  such  a  change  Swedenborg  says  that 
the  thing  consisting  of  those  substances  "  was  created, " 
or  "is  created,"  as  the  case  may  be.  Not  otherwise  is 
the  Maker  a  Creator  than  as  He  is  a  Shaper;  unto 
which  agrees  also  the  good  old  Luther.  Substance  itself 
is  not  creatable,  not  even  by  Power  of  the  Infinite. 
The  substance  that  is,  always  has  been.  Whilst  it  was  in 
God,  it  was  living ;  so  much  of  it  as  came  to  be  no  longer  in 
God  went  dead,  and  dead  it  has  stood  since  then.  If  not 
creatable  by  even  an  Infinite  Power,  it  would  not  be  perish- 
able in  lack  of  Infinite  support.  The  fear  of  the  Ministers 
that  if  God's  imagined  sustaining  Might  exerted  upon  an 
atom  of  substance  were  withdrawn,  the  atom  would  lapse 
into  non-entity,  is  a  sheer  nervousness,  as  if  one  should  fear 
the  sky  might  fall,  or  the  like.  Whither  should  substance, 
even  if  neglected  by  the  Deity,  lapse  ?  Not  back  into  Deity, 
surely  ?  I  hope  not ;  such  a  mishap  would  be  distressing. 
Can  the  Deity's  conserving  power,  as  the  Ministers  conceive 
it,  consist  in  pressing  off  these  atoms  lest  they  should  tum- 
ble back  into  Himself  ?  Is  it  in  this  sense  that  they  think 
all  things  tend  back  and  up  towards  their  Divine  Creator  ? 

11.  When  Swedenborg  uses  the  word  "spiritual"  he 
sometimes  has  reference  to  spiritual  substance ;  but  more 
commonly  either  to  the  form  of  some  spiritual  being  or 
object,  or  else  to  a  movement  in  some  spiritual  substance. 

11.  All  made  things,  be  they  live  things  or  dead   things, 


192 

are  outside  of  the  Maker,  and  are  not  any  part  of  His  Sub- 
stance. With  the  idealists  it  is  a  favorite  saying  that  all  the 
forms  and  workings  of  the  universe  are  the  Maker's  thoughts. 
This  saying  can  be  turned  into  what  is  true,  provided  it  be 
understood  to  mean  that  those  forms  and  workings  are  of 
similar  shape  to  the  shapes  of  the  thoughts  Divine.  So 
meant,  this  saying  is  intelligible  to  the  intelligent ;  just  as 
when  we  say  of  the  picture  of  this  man  or  of  that  man  "  It 
is  this  man,"  or  "It  is  that  man."  But  thus  the  idealists 
will  not  have  it.  Instead  of  beholding  in  created  things 
God's  mere  Image, — an  Image  in  which  there  is  no  more  of 
God  than,  in  the  looking-glass-image  of  a  man,  there  is  of  the 
very  man's  self  (Divine  Love  and  Wisdom,  n.  59),  they  will 
have  it  that  the  Substance  of  God  is  within  that  Imagery ; 
and  that  from  His  Substance  (which  they  declare  to  be 
within),  the  Imagery  is  projected  forth  as  a  Divine  cerebra- 
tion. For  they  are  pantheists,  and  make  God  to  be  all 
things,  and  make  all  things  to  be  God — to  be  God  in  the 
profound  interior ;  i.  e.,  either  in  the  profound  interior  of 
those  things  or  in  the  profound  interior  of  the  pantheists 
themselves.  If  they  tie  themselves  to  Swedenborg,  they  still 
pass  by  the  passages  in  which  he  teaches  that  all  created 
substance  is  substance  which  at  creation  was  ejected  from 
the  Divine  Structure  and  which  thenceforth  formed  no 
portion  of  the  Divine  Body,  still  less  of  the  Divine  Brain 
(Div.  Love  and  Wisdom,  n.  291-294).  And  yet  many  of 
them  vaunt  their  scheme  beyond  the  scheme  of  their  fel- 
low idealists  who  affirm  that  all  the  forms  of  the  visible 
world  are  but  products  of  the  mind  of  any  one  that  contem- 
plates those  forms.  Those  idealists  who  falsely  call  them- 
selves Swedenborgians  or  "  New-Churchmen,"  vaunt  their 
own  scheme  beyond  this  latter  scheme,  for  the  reason  (as 
they  say)  that  their  scheme  is  a  scheme  whereby  it  is  a 
Divine  and  Public  Brain  that  does  the  constant  thinking- 
process  in  which  they  allege  the  reality  of  all  things  con- 
sists ;  whereas,  in  the  other  scheme,  each  individual  brain  is 


193 

a  private  manuf acturer  of  that  reality.  When  you  ask  them 
— This  Divine  cerebration  or  movement  in  the  Divine  Brain, 
how  does  it  exist  in  substances  that  form  no  longer  any  por- 
tion of  the  Divine  Brain  or  even  of  the  Divine  Body  ?  (Div. 
Love  and  Wis.,  n.  291-294) — when  you  ask  this,  they  mum- 
ble something,  and  thenceforth  they  hold  you  to  be  a 
materialistic  scoffer  and  a  proponent  of  questions  that  might 
upset  any  system  of  theology  conceivable  by  them. 


194 

A  PICTORIAL  DESCRIPTION  OF  THE  THEOLOGICAL 
SYSTEM  OF  THE  SWEDENBORGIANS  AT  PRESENT, 
BTTT  NOT  OF  SWEDENBORG'S  SYSTEM. 

[I  cannot  set  this  over  into  English,  without 
throwing  out  of  line  the  more  delicate  adjustments 
of  the  symbolism.] 

Ante  mare  et  terras  et  quod  tegit  omnia  caelum, 
Unus  erat  toto  naturae  vultus  in  orbe, 
Quern  dixere  Chaos :  rudis  indigestaque  moles, 
Nee  quicquam  nisi  pondus  iners,  congestaque  eodem 
Non  bene  junctarum  discordia  semina  rerum. 
Nullus  adhuc  mundo  praebebat  lumina  Titan, 
Nee  nova  crescendo  reparabat  cornua  Phoebe, 
Nee  circumfuso  pendebat  in  aere  Tellus 
Ponderibus  librata  suis,  nee  brachia  longo 
Margine  terrarum  porrexerat  Amphitrite  ; 

Quaque  fuit  tellus,  illic  et  pontus  et  aer. 

f 

Sic  erat  instabilis  tellus,  innabilis  unda, 
Lucis  egens  aer  :  nulli  sua  forma  manebat, 
Obstabatque  aliis  aliud  quia  corpore  in  uno 
Frigida  pugnabant  calidis,  humentia  siccis, 
Mollia  cum  duris,  sine  pondere  habentia  pondus» 


SOME  AWKWARD  APPRENTICE-WORK 


IN   THE 


BOTTOMING  OF  TUBS. 


Omnis  influxus  Divlnus  est  a  primis  In  ULTIMA,  et  PER  NBXUM  CUM  ULTIMIS 
in  media  .  .  .  Quod  ita  sit  est  ex  eo  quod  In  ultlmls  COBXISTANT  OMNIA  .  .  . 
Ex  quo  patet  quod  Divinum  In  ultimo  sit  in  suo  pleno. 

De  Divina  Sapientia,  vm,  2. 

Divinus  Ordo  nusquam  subsistit  in  medio  et  ibi  absque  ultimo  format 
aliquid ;  non  enlm  est  [ibi]  in  suo  pleno  et  pert ecto ;  sed  vadit  ad  ultimum ; 
at  cum  est  in  suo  ultimo,  tune  format,  et  quoque  per  media  IBI  COLL  ATA  se 
redintegrat  et  producit  ulterius. 

De  Coelo  et  Inferno,  n.  315. 


197 


Most  of  the  following  essays  have  been  already  published  ; 
but  chiefly  in  periodicals  more  or  less  obscure. 

It  is  not  without  shame  that  I  offer  them  as  specimens 
of  a  manner  in  which  spiritual  truths  can  be  rationally  re- 
ceived into  the  vessels  of  natural  thought.  They  are  so 
poor  that  I  limit  narrowly  their  number ;  having  no  time 
to  spare  for  the  bettering  of  any. 

Science,  as  far  as  I  know  aught  of  it,  is  perfectly  a  con- 
texture of  definite  forms  which,  when  applied  to  spiritual 
matters,  are  definite  spiritual  truths.  I  am  not  poor  in 
samples  to  make  good  this  assertion ;  but  my  samples  are 
poor ;  poor  because  my  time  is  scanty.  As  soon  as  Sweden- 
borg's  writings,  either  in  his  Latin  or  in  translations  which 
shall  not  falsify  his  meaning,  shall  be  read  by  men  of 
thoroughly  scientific  education,  who  instead  of  thinking,  like 
most  literary  men,  by  words  alone,  shall  think  habitually  in 
the  pictorial  forms  which  Science  alone  furnishes — as  soon  as 
this  shall  come  about,  I  know  that  the  Spiritual  Coopers 
will  be  both  deft  and  many.  Meanwhile  we  must  put  up 
with  the  rough-work  of  Apprentices ;  and  as  such  rough- 
work  I  offer  these  fragments.  The  Bottoming  of  theologi- 
cal Thought  becomes  daily  more  necessary. 


198 
EACH  ONE  THING  IS  MADE  UP  OF  THKEE. 

It  has  been  justly  observed  that  "  if  any  one  shall  say  that 
at  least  arithmetic  is  certain  and  exact,  and  that  it  is  mathe- 
matically impossible  that  three  can  be  one,  or  one  three,  the 
reply  is,  that  this  is  true  as  far  as  arithmetic  governs.'* 
For  arithmetic  is  a  science  of  abstractions ;  and  mere  num- 
bers, parted  from  real  things,  are  wholly  imaginary.  But 
with  all  that  is  real,  be  it  God,  Mind,  or  Matter,  not  only  is 
it  possible  that  one  be  three  and  that  three  be  one,  but  also 
it  is  impossible  that  any  thing  or  being  whatever  shall  exist 
except  by  reason  that,  in  such  thing  or  being,  one  is  three 
and  three  are  one.  And  this  can  swiftly  be  demonstrated. 

No  thing  can  be  or  be  made,  unless  it  consist  of : 

(1)  SUBSTANCE. 

(2)  FOKM. 

(3)  A  COMBINATION-INTO-ONE  of  Substance  and  Form,  making 
the  thing  itself. 

These  three  are  at  once  three  and  distinct ;  and  also,  as 
long  as  that  thing  exists,  they  are  one  and  inseparable.  No- 
thing on  earth  can  be  found  or  imagined,  of  which  this  pro 
position  is  not  absolutely  true. 

For  example,  on  the  table  before  me  is  a  horse-shoe.  In 
that  horse-shoe  is,  first  of  all,  SUBSTANCE,  which  happens  to 
be  steel.  If  I  beat  it  to  powder,  if  I  heat  it  till  it  is  molten, 
if  I  turn  it  into  gas,  the  substance  remains,  though  no  horse- 
shoe remains.  Substance,  then,  is  something  in  that  horse- 
shoe which  stands  on  its  own  footing,  and  for  its  being 
stands  indebted  neither  to  the  horse-shoe  nor  to  the  horse- 
shoe's form.  If  anything  exists  by  itself  and  in  itself,  then 
surely  exists  this  substance  which  is  in  the  horse-shoe. 

Second.  The  FORM  of  that  horse-shoe  is  utterly  different 
from  the  form  of  certain  other  steel  articles,  into  any  of 
which,  or  many  of  which,  I  may  remanuf  acture  the  substance 
which  is  in  the  horse-shoe.  Nor,  for  its  being,  does  this  sec- 
ond element — Form — depend  upon  that  very  same  sub- 


199 

stance,  steel.  I  could  make  a  horse-shoe  out  of  another  piece 
or  kind  of  steel,  or  make  an  iron  horse-shoe,  or  a  wooden  one; 
and  make  it  of  that  very  form.  Or  even  I  might  make  the 
picture  of  such  a  horse-shoe  without  any  substance  at  all,  ex- 
cept what  consisted  of  the  ink  or  the  lead  in  the  out- 
line of  the  picture ;  yet  no  one  would  pretend  that  Form  is 
less  there  then,  than  were  it  a  real  horse-shoe. 

Third.  If  I  PUT  TOGETHER  these  two,  viz.,  the  substance  and 
the  form ;  that  is,  if  I  give  to  that  substance  this  particular 
form,  and  into  this  form  throw  that  particular  substance,  I 
have  then  a  third  thing  which  is  other  than  the  mere  sub- 
stance of  a  horse-shoe,  and  is  other  than  the  mere  form  of  a 
horse-shoe,  but  is  a  horse-shoe  itself.  And  in  that  shoe  these 
three  elements  will  then  exist  united,  and  they  shall  make  in 
it  there  one  thing  known  as  a  horse-shoe.  Strike  out  any  one 
of  these  three  fundamentals  or  hypostases,  and  your  shoe  is 
clean  gone  forever.  I  ask  the  disbeliever  to  try  this  reason- 
ing with  anything  he  pleases  which  he  has  ever  seen  ;  and 
when  he  finds  one  thing  in  which  there  are  not  these  three 
distinct  hypostases  or  Up-stays  of  Being,  these  three  distinct 
personce  or  characters,  or  when  he  finds  a  thing  in  which 
these  three  do  not  make  one,  exactly  one,  with  not  the  small- 
est fraction  more  or  less  than  one,  let  him  come  to  me, 
and  I  will  swiftly  and  openly  abjure  this  Trinity. 

Will  you  now  touch  that  horse-shoe  ?  What  impresses 
your  sense,  when  you  touch  it,  is  Force.  In  the  last  analysis 
all  our  sensation  of  matter  is  the  effect  of  Force.  Not  Force 
itself,  but  the  effect  of  Force.  In  all  that  we  sense,  then,  we 
find  these  three,  Substance,  Form  and  Force.  The  Substance 
and  the  Form  affect  us  as  Force.  Of  these  three,  Substance 
is  the  Father,  and  Form  is  the  Offspring  and  Shaper,  and 
without  Form  is  nothing  made  which  is  made.  From  the 
substance  and  the  form  proceeds  force,  without  which  noth- 
ing can  be  brought  about. 

Substance  is  an  invisible  father.  No  man  ever  saw  sub- 
stance ;  Form,  its  offspring,  is  what  brings  it  forth  to 


200 

view.  Never  shall  man  apprehend  substance  except  through 
form,  as  a  go-between  and  Mediator.  And  neither  form  nor 
substance  can  truly  be  made  known  to  us  except  by  the 
operation  of  Force.  What  you  feel  in  the  horse-shoe  is  its 
resistant  force,  according  to  its  form  ;  and  within  this  form 
is  Substance,  old  Father  Steadfast.  If  the  horse-shoe  made 
absolutely  no  resistance  to  your  touch,  you  absolutely  could 
not  feel  it.  In  like  manner,  if  it  made  absolutely  no  resist- 
ance to  the  waves  of  light,  you  absolutely  could  not  see  it. 
Sensation  is  based  on  impression  of  the  senses,  and  without 
an  exertion  of  force  there  can  be  no  impression. 

The  substance  of  the  horse-shoe  is  certainly  essential  to 
the  horse-shoe. 

You  may  say,  if  you  please,  that  the  form  is  nothing. 
But  destroy  the  form  of  the  horse-shoe.  Will  you  then  be 
willing  to  shoe  with  it  one  of  your  own  horses  ?  To  that 
horse-shoe  the  form  is  not  less  essential  than  is  the  sub- 
stance. 

It  is  equally  essential  that  a  union  of  the  substance  and 
of  the  form  be  effected.  For  the  possession  of  the  raw 
material,  and  the  possession,  moreover,  of  the  design  or 
form  of  a  proper  horse-shoe,  will  not  give  you  a  shoe,  until  is 
brought  about  that  union  which  makes  up  the  shoe. 

Is  it  not  plain  that  these  three  essentials  are  distinct1? 

The  substance  is  not  the  same  thing  as  the  form,  nor  is  it 
the  same  thing  as  the  combination  of  the  substance  and  the 
form  into  the  shoe,  nor  is  the  form  the  same  thing  as  that 
combination. 

And  yet  are  not  these  three  one  ?  Look  ;  you  grasp  them 
all  three,  and  yet  you  see  but  one  thing — a  shoe. 

What  a  mystery  is  the  trinity  in  that  shoe  !  Three  are  one 
and  one  is  three.  A  mystery,  yet  the  foundation  of  all 
being.  O  unbeliever,  if  God  also  is,  can  He  be  less  than 
Three,  and  can  the  Three  be  more  than  One  ?  If  I  am 
wrong,  then  by  this  shoe  which  I  can  see  with  my  bodily 
eye,  teach  me  concerning  Him  who  by  that  eye  may  not  be 


201 

seen.  Or,  if  you  say  He  is  a  Spirit  and  that  nothing  can  be 
known  about  Him,  waste  no  time  in  disputing  this  with  me, 
but  look  into  your  own  spirit.  Do  you  not  find  in  your  own 
spirit  a  thing  SUBSTANTIAL,  the  which  is  your  real  bent  and 
desire  ?  And  to  give  your  bent  and  desire  a  FORM,  do  you 
not  find  your  intellect  or  reason  I  And  to  carry  out  and 
contrive  and  fulfil  these  two  in  the  world  of  matter,  do  you 
not  find  an  effective  RESOLUTION,  and  a  force  or  power  thence, 
for  the  accomplishment  of  your  bent  and  desire  as  often  as 
your  intellect  can  shape  its  fulfilment?  Do  you  not  often 
find  that  your  wish  is  quite  other  than  your  reason  ?  And  is 
not  the  accomplishment  of  your  wish  other  than  your  mere 
wish  ?  And  whenever  you  can  combine  your  wish  and  your 
thought  into  the  corresponding  act,  are  not  all  three  there — 
wish,  thought  and  act — a  trine  in  unity  ? 

Can  a  man  of  sound  mind  imagine  that  in  God  the  Three 
should  make  a  One,  and  that  this  One  should  be  a  Three, 
and  yet  that  the  nature  of  His  being  should  fail  to  be 
stamped  and  woven  into  a  single  thing  that  He  has  made  '? 
If  Trinity  is  essential  to  Him,  can  what  He  has  caused  to  be 
stand  without  it  ?  If  Trinity  exists  in  all  the  visible,  shall 
it  in  the  invisible  be  denied  ? 

Because  God  is  Trine,  His  created  world  is  thronged  with 
phases  of  the  trinal.  I  have  little  room  for  illustration. 
Yet  for  its  passing  truth  and  beauty,  let  me  call  to  mind  the 
Trinity  of  Heat,  Light  and  Actinism.  These,  which  form- 
erly were  thought  to  be  three  that  were  merely  three,  are 
now  known  to  be  three  which  at  the  same  time  are  one,  one 
only.  By  a  regular  substitution  of  terms,  the  Deathless 
Creed  can  be  turned  into  formulas  of  Science  as  to  Heat  and 
Light  and  Actinism.  But  here  let  no  man  lose  himself. 
There  is  no  true  ethereal  Trinity,  no  Sun  of  Kighteousness, 
save  Christ ;  in  whom  is  the  Father,  and  from  whom  goes 
forth  the  Holy  Spirit.  In  Him  dwells,  not  a  just  Third  part 
alone,  but  ALL  the  fullness  of  the  Godhead  bodily.  And 
from  His  divine  Love  or  Warmth,  and  His  divine  Logos, 


202 

Light  or  Intelligence,  combined  into  His  Divine  Life, 
Pneuma,  or  spiritual  actinic  Force,  and  not  from  elsewhere, 
comes  the  growth  of  all  trees  of  Righteousness.  He  is  their 
Sun,  and  Him  it  behoves  them  to  worship,  even  as  the  green 
world  worships  the  globe  of  fire.  To  receive,  through  re- 
pentance and  belief,  good  desires  from  Him  ;  to  receive 
keen  spiritual  intelligence  from  His  Word  and  Works ;  and 
to  combine  these  good  desires  and  this  keen  intelligence  into 
a  daily  life  of  upright  works — cannot  everyone  see  that  this, 
and  this  only,  is  spiritual  growth,  and  that  this  is  indeed  wor- 
shipping Him  1  Herein  is  glorified  the  Father-Soul  dwell- 
ing in  Him,  viz.,  that  His  own  bring  forth  much  fruit ;  so,  and 
not  otherwise,  shall  they  be  His  disciples.  The  true  glory 
of  the  sun  is  neither  in  the  eastern  clouds  at  sunrise,  nor  in 
in  the  gloaming,  nor  yet  in  the  blaze  of  noonday  ;  but 
his  glory  lies  in  the  growth  with  which  his  actinism  covers 
the  earth  which  without  it  would  be  a  desert.  Therefore  at 
the  spring-time  of  the  year  the  feast  of  the  Trinity  been 
pitched ;  at  this  green  time  it  comes,  in  the  very  nick  of 
order. 


THREE  PERSONS  IN  ONE  MAN. 

1  *  Men  moet  bij  lezen  denken, 
Gelijk  de  kiekens  drenken." 

As  thou  readest,  stop  and  think, 
Like  the  chickens  as  they  drink. 

The  soul  is  a  person.  Men  that  have  gone  to  the  other 
world  are  persons  now  as  before.  They  are  not  things. 
Things  are  the  bodies  which  they  left  behind.  The  Wish, 
the  Thought,  and  at  least  some  Force  of  Will — these  are 


203 

what  make  personality  up ;  and  these  make  the  soul  up ;  and 
they  make  nothing  else  up.  The  soul  is  very  person ;  an 
inner  and  essential  person ;  the  person. 

But  nobody  can  see  the  soul.  The  body  is  what  we  see. 
It  is  in  the  eyes  and  tones  and  gestures  that  the  Wish 
gleams  forth ;  by  the  tongue  the  Thought  shows  itself ;  and 
in  deeds  of  the  hands  Force  of  Will  comes  out.  As  often  as 
we  see  the  Wish,  the  Thought  and  the  Force  of  Will  which 
together  make  up  personality,  we  are  seeing  the  body  only ; 
and  therefore  we  call  the  body  personal;  we  call  it  "  person." 
In  English  there  is  not  a  word  more  firmly  rooted  in  its 
meaning  than  the  word  "  person  "  is  rooted  in  this  meaning 
of  "  body."  Daily  we  hear  and  speak  of  "  tidiness  of  per- 
son"; of  "venturing  the  person";  of  "beauty  of  person"; 
of  "  injuries  to  the  person  "  ;  meaning  always  the  body.  In 
law,  both  English  and  American,  "  the  person  "  means  just 
the  body,  the  body  only.  And  this,  as  far  as  I  know,  is  pre- 
cisely what  it  means  in  every  other  living  tongue  into  which 
it  has  come  into  general  use. 

And  rightly  we  call  the  body  the  "  person  " — at  least  as  long 
as  it  is  alive.  Until  it  is  a  corpse,  the  body  is  more  than  a 
body.  With  the  personality  of  the  soul  it  is  fairly  soaked, 
and  from  it  that  personality  is  steadily  dripping.  We  do  not 
wrench  or  stretch  the  word  when  we  speak  of  the  body  as  a 
"  person."  The  body  is  strictly  "  personal."  It  is  the  outer 
or  bodily  person.  It  is  the  person.  Thus  we  find  that  every 
man  consists  of  two  distinct  persons ;  of  two  persons  at  least. 
Practically  however  he  possesses  another  person  still. 

The  soul  cannot  presently  strike  us  as  a  person,  or  affect 
us  with  its  personality,  unless  it  strike  or  affect  us  through 
the  body ;  and  just  so,  if  the  body  were  always  inactive, 
neither  body  or  soul  could  strike  or  affect  us  at  all.  For 
personality  is  like  the  light :  it  lives  only  whilst  a-moving. 
It  lies  in  spreading  ripples  and  in  pulses  of  agitation.  It  is 
dynamic  always  and  static  never ;  the  hurtling  of  it  against 
us,  and  its  onslaught  upon  our  sensories  physical  and  spirit- 


204 

ual,  are  what  make  it,  to  us,  itself.  The  cataleptic  has  soul 
and  has  body ;  but  so  long  as  a  certain  third  element,  con- 
sisting of  his  active  personality,  is  suspended,  he  is  not  quite 
a  "  person."  If  a  man  has  been  mesmerized,  and  brought 
under  the  will  of  another,  then  so  long  as  this  state  lasts,  he 
is  not  a  "  person  " ;  for  all  this  while  his  acts  are  the  acts  of 
the  other.  That  women  are  "  persons "  in  all  respects,  is 
denied  in  many  countries.  The  reason  is,  that  there  by  law 
they  are  incapable  of  certain  political  activities ;  and  Activity 
is  one  of  the  three  elements  of  personality.  A  slave  is  held 
to  be  a  person  in  some  respects ;  in  others,  to  be  a  thing. 
His  outer  or  bodily  person  the  law  has  almost  always  recog- 
nized, and  the  murderer  of  him  suffers  death ;  while  to  kill  a 
horse  of  perhaps  thrice  the  slave's  value  is  punished  only  in 
damages.  His  inner  person  too  has  been  recognized ;  and 
for  murder  with  intent  by  him,  he  might  be  hanged.  But 
to  do  what  he  willed  and  what  he  thought  best — to  send 
forth  an  Activity  which  is  the  offspring  of  untrammeled  soul 
and  untrammeled  body — was  not  given  to  him  as  to  free- 
men ;  his  living,  acting  self,  the  best  third  of  him,  his  prac- 
tical entity,  his  total  effective  being — all  this  was  but  a  pup- 
pet whereof  his  master  pulled  the  strings ;  and  therefore  his 
acting  self  was  not,  and  was  not  called,  a  "  person."  It  was 
a  thing.  And  because  this  third  part  of  him  which  summed 
him  really  up,  was  a  "  thing/'  he  himself,  summed  up,  was 
a  thing,  and  was  called  a  "  thing  "  or  chattel. 

The  soul  is  indeed  the  inner  person ;  and  the  body  is  in- 
deed the  outer  person ;  and  within  these  two,  for  themselves 
and  in  themselves,  personality  lies  complete.  But  this  com- 
pleteness is  for  themselves  alone  and  in  themselves  alone ; 
and  that  of  them  which  works  on  others  is  not  either  of  them 
singly,  but  is  the  third  element  made  up  of  the  two.  What 
works  on  others  is  the  force  and  forth-flowing  energy  of  soul 
and  body,  their  very  combination.  Without  the  impact  of 
this  complex  energy,  no  impression  of  personality — and  at 


205 

bottom  no  impression  of  a  man's  soul  or  even  of  his  body — 
could  be  conveyed  to  another. 

This  last — as  to  the  body — will  be  questioned  by  the 
thoughtless ;  but  I  affirm  it  with  the  widest  sweep  that  the 
words  can  take,  and  with  utter  soberness,  and  with  a  weigh- 
ing of  my  words.  Except  for  that  processive  force  and 
energy,  absolute  or  relative,  which  each  object  cognizable  by 
any  of  the  five  senses  exerts,  not  one  of  the  five  senses  could 
apprehend  or  take  the  object  in.  Your  own  hand  at  noon- 
day you  could  by  no  means  see,  were  it  not  for  the  quiver  of 
its  surface,  which  trembles  with  the  shock  of  the  ether- 
waves  ;  and  which  while  thus  a-struggling  with  those  waves, 
beats  back  toward  your  eye  each  wave,  as  a  bluff  rock  beats 
back  the  surging  of  the  sea.  You  could  not  hear  a  bell  rung 
at  your  very  ear,  were  it  not  for  the  same  resistant  force  in 
the  particles  of  the  bell-metal,  which,  although  they  yield  to 
the  blow  of  the  clapper,  spring  swiftly  back  to  the  position 
they  had  before  the  blow  was  struck,  and  then  leap  still  be- 
yond that  position,  and  then  leap  back,  and  thus  vibrate 
hither  and  yon,  and  thrash  the  air,  and,  through  the  air, 
thrash  the  drum  of  the  ear  and  the  nerve  of  hearing.  You 
could  not  touch  or  taste  or  smell  an  apple,  were  it  not  for  the 
same  resisting  force  in  the  apple's  particles,  which — in  solid, 
in  liquid,  or  in  gaseous  form — make  dint  upon  nerves  in 
the  tongue.  Men,  beasts  and  things,  all  alike  exert  this 
force ;  alike  they  give  themselves  thus  forth  with  out-flowing 
energy.  Or  if  they  fail  to  give  themselves  forth,  they  sim- 
ply stay  unknown  to  us,  stay  utterly  unknown ;  to  us,  till 
they  shall  be  thus  forth-given,  they  actually  do  not  exist.  In 
that  regard,  the  only  difference  between  animate  and  inani- 
mate objects  is  this:  with  the  inanimate  the  effluence  is 
dead,  and  with  the  animate  there  is  an  effluence  which  we 
call  alive.  And  between  beasts  and  men  the  only  difference 
is,  that  in  beasts  the  effluent  activity  is  purely  animal,  but  in 
man  it  is  a  "  person  ";  it  is  his  very  person. 

If  you  are  choosing  a  servant,  you  will  choose  him  by  both 


206 

his  mind  and  body;  yet  not  by  these  two  in  themselves, 
but  solely  by.  a  third  element  in  which  you  will  find 
these  two  conjoined.  This  element  is  their  combined  forth- 
flowing  Activity.  For  so  far  as  this  servant's  mind  and  body 
fail  to  join  together  in  Activity,  and  fail  to  proceed  forth 
into  work,  you  will  say  he  is  a  lazy  fellow,  and  not  the 
"  person  "  you  want.  His  mind  or  inner  person  is  bright, 
and  his  body  or  outer  person  is  strong ;  but  the  person  you 
are  seeking  is  a  third  "  person  "  still,  and  a  very  different 
man  from  this  sturdy  good-for-naught. 

The  soul  is  substantially  the  man.  Be  he  dwarf  or  giant, 
in  avoirdupois  his  substantial  self  by  no  means  lies.  There- 
fore we  shall  call  the  soul  the  Substance  of  him. 

In  his  bodily  organization,  and  especially  in  the  nervous 
system,  this  Substance  of  him  is  unfolded  and  gets  form. 
And  therefore  we  daily  call  (as  philosophically  we  must  al- 
ways call)  the  body  his  Form. 

The  energy  and  output  of  his  soul  and  body  combined, 
whereby  he  acts  powerfully,  or  somewhat,  or  perhaps  next 
to  none  at  all,  on  us,  on  the  world,  on  the  ages, — the  Ac- 
tivity, in  short,  which  his  soul  and  body  are  always  throwing 
off,  we  daily  call  his  Force. 

And  these  three,  Substance,  Form  and  Force,  are  not*  only 
his,  but  are  he. 

The  inner  person  is  essentially  the  person,  and  is  essen- 
tially the  man.  It  is  the  source  and  father  of  his  manhood. 
But  no  man  has  seen  this  father  at  any  time.  This  father 
has  immortality  and  dwells  in  the  light  unto  which  no  flesh 
can  approach. 

Man's  second  person  is,  in  general,  all  whereby  this  inner 
soul's  self  may  stand  forth  and  be  unfolded.  In  his  mental 
constitution,  his  Wish  stands  first  and  foremost ;  and  the  un. 
folding  or  presentation  of  this  elemental  self  is  the  Intellect 
or  Thought.  The  Thought  is  that  by  which  his  Wish  makes 
all  its  little  mental  worlds  ;  it  is  his  Wisdom,  by  the  which 
he  founds  his  petty  mental  earth  peculiar ;  all  things  that  he 


207 

makes  are  made  by  it ;  and  without  it,  is  nothing  in  him 
made  that  is  made.  In  the  Thought,  the  Wish  or  Desires 
express  and  form  or  formulate  themselves.  Who  can  know 
or  become  aware  of  what  he  wishes,  unless  he  thinks  about 
it,  or  unless  already  he  has  thought  about  it !  To  such 
thinking,  his  Wish  impels  him  steadily ;  to  that  Thought  his 
Wish  is  always  Father  ;  and  of  that  thought,  as  the  Wish's 
proper  Son  and  Offspring,  there  is  an  eternal  generation. 
Do  but  remember  this  thing  after  some  great  joy  or  some  great 
sorrow  shall  have  come  upon  you,  and  when  you  shall  have 
slept  deeply,  a  full  night's  sleep,  upon  it,  and  in  sleep  shall 
have  lost  it  from  mind.  When  suddenly  you  wake,  at  the 
first  instant  of  waking,  and  before  you  can  bring  distinctly 
into  mind  that  sorrow  or  that  joy,  you  will  surely  feel  the 
brunt  of  one  or  the  other  as  it  bursts  upon  you ;  and  yet  for 
the  moment  you  know  not  what  it  is ;  and  there  for  the  mo- 
ment you  will  be  held  in  confused  gladness  or  in  confused 
pain ;  you  are  happy  or  you  are  wretched ;  but  wherefore 
and  wherein,  you  do  not  yet  know,  because  the  matter  can- 
not yet  be  brought  before  you  in  thought.  Now,  that  un- 
known pain  or  that  unknown  gladness  is  your  unseen 
Father-element,  your  Feeling.  As  soon  as  you  are  broad 
awake,  that  Feeling  shall  "  beget "  or  arouse  a  Thought 
around  or  about  itself.  The  Thought  thus  begotten  was 
yet  beforehand  a-lying  in  the  very  heart  or  bosom  of  the 
Feeling ;  and  in  the  beginning,  before  you  woke  to  con- 
sciousness, this  Thought  was  with  that  Feeling,  and  was 
that  Feeling ;  and  this  Thought,  being  brought  forth  in 
your  waking  mental  world,  reveals  to  you  now  that  Feeling 
and  declares  it;  and  now  through  this  Thought,  and  in  this 
Thought,  you  feel  and  well  know  the  back-lying  bliss,  or  the 
back-lying  smart;  for  of  that  bliss  or  that  smart  this 
Thought  is  the  express  image — the  brightness  of  its  glory, 
or  the  darkness  of  its  despair.  This  Offspring-element,  the 
Thought,  is  the  expression  of  your  feeling  ;  it  is  its  embodi- 
ment, its  veiy  body.  It  is  in  the  form  of  your  feeling,  and 


208 

is  equal  to  your  feeling ;  or  if  not  equal  as  yet,  you  will  keep 
a-thinking  and  a-thinking  and  thereby  shaping  and  molding 
your  thought,  until  it  is  quite  equal  to  your  feeling,  and 
until  you  have  fully  bodied  forth  in  that  thought  your  hap- 
piness or  your  sorrow. 

But  in  man's  physical  constitution,  the  unfolding  of  his 
inner  self  takes  place  through  his  body  or  bodily  person, 
and  takes  place  in  that  person.  With  the  growth  of  that 
outer  person,  before  birth  and  after,  and  from  childhood  up, 
the  inner  person  forms  and  develops;  and  without  some 
growth  and  unfolding  of  the  bodily  person,  before  birth  or 
after,  no  evolution  of  the  soul  can  come.  This  outer  or 
bodily  person  can  do  nothing  of  itself,  but  only  what  it  per- 
ceives the  soul  to  be  doing.  The  words  that  it  speaks,  it 
speaks  not  of  itself ;  but  the  soul  that  dwells  within,  this  is 
what  does  the  work  done  by  the  body.  The  soul  is  invisible; 
but  the  body  declares  the  soul.  Suppose  some  singular  un- 
worldly friend  should  in  a  mystical  manner  begin  to  tell  me 
of  a  certain  being,  whom  he  declares  I  have  not  seen ;  and 
who,  he  strangely  enough  declares,  is  within  him,  and  prompts 
his  acts.  Shall  I  not  say  to  my  friend  "  Show  him  to  me  now, 
I  pray  you  ?  "  And  will  not  my  friend  quickly  answer  ? — "  No 
man  comes  at  that  in-dwelling  being  but  through  me,  who 
am  his  body.  If  you  know  me,  the  body,  you  know  that 
also,  the  soul ;  and  from  henceforth  you  know  it  and  have 
seen  it.  Have  I  been  so  long  time  with  you,  and  yet  have 
you  not  known  me?  He  that  has  seen  me  has  seen  the 
soul  within  me;  how  then  say  you,  Show  me  the  soul? 
Believe  me  that  I  am  in  the  soul  and  the  soul  in  me,  or  else 
believe  me  for  my  very  acts'  sake;  for  these  acts  show 
my  in-dwelling  spirit.  I  can  of  my  own  self  do  nothing.  I 
seek  not  my  own  will,  but  the  will  of  the  soul  within.  I  do 
nothing  of  myself ;  but  as  the  soul  teaches  me,  so  I  speak. 
Many  acts  have  I  shown  you  from  the  soul.  I  and  my 
soul  are  one." 

Great  indeed  is  the  mystery  of  our  manhood — the  soul 


209 

manifest  in  the  flesh.  In  man,  the  holy  or  unholy  is  the 
soul ;  the  entrance  to  it  is  a  living  way,  the  body ;  through 
the  vail,  that  is  to  say,  the  flesh ;  thereby  with  a  true  heart, 
in  full  assurance  of  faith,  may  every  one  draw  near  the  soul 
of  his  friend.  That  is  the  way ;  and  no  man  comes  to  the 
soul  but  by  the  body.  For  this  second  or  bodily  person  is 
the  very  incarnation  and  mundane  exposition  of  the  inner 
person,  of  the  spirit  otherwise  invisible.  It  is  more  than  a 
mere  part  of  the  man ;  it  is  all  swollen  with  the  human 
pleroma;  and  in  it  dwells  all  the  fullness  of  the  Manhood 
bodily. 

The  third  person  in  man  is  the  whole  sweep  and  swath  of 
his  life;  it  is  his  active,  effective,  daily  self.  It  proceeds 
from  his  inner  and  outer  persons ;  and  from  it,  and  in  it, 
and  by  it,  and  strictly  according  to  it,  do  we  know  him  as 
"  a  person."  This  third  one  never  speaks  from  himself,  but 
he  is  the  combination — yes,  complex — of  soul  and  body ;  and 
every  instant  he  testifies  about  the  body  and  about  the  soul ; 
and  the  soul  is  ever  sending  him  forth  by  the  body,  and  the 
body  is  ever  sending  him  forth  from  the  soul.  He  takes 
from  the  body  and  shows  it  to  the  world.  For  the  things 
that  belong  to  the  soul  belong  thereby  to  the  body ;  and 
therefore  I  say  that  this  third  person  in  man's  constitution 
takes  from  the  body  and  shows  it  to  the  world.  And  here 
and  hereafter  alike,  of  these  three  persons  does  man  perforce 
consist.  For  there  is  a  spiritual  body,  as  there  is  a  natural 
body;  and  in  the  coming  as  in  the  passing  world,  is  man  an 
ever  active  being. 

Daily  then,  we  give  the  word  three  meanings  essen- 
tially different.  Now  it  is  the  soul;  now  it  is  the  body; 
and  now  again  it  is  neither  soul  nor  body,  but  a  third  made 
up  of  the  two.  Have  we  not  here  some  trick,  some  evasion, 
or  at  least  a  jumble  of  ideas  ?  None,  none,  my  reader ;  if 
none  in  thee,  if  none  in  the  putting  together  of  thee,  and  in 
the  makings  of  thine  own  dear  self. 

For  remember  that  here  and  now  we  are  dealing  not  with 


210 

three  different  beings,  but  with  the  essential  elements  of 
any  one  being  and  of  all  being ;  namely  with  the  Substance, 
the  Form,  and  the  combination  of  Form  and  Substance 
called  Force  or  Energy.  And  when  we  say  there  are  three 
of  these  elements,  thereby  we  say  that  each  is  different  from 
the  rest.  For  if  not  different,  they  would  be  the  same ;  and 
they  thus  would  be  not  three  elements  at  all,  but  one. 
Thereby  also  we  say  that  essentially  they  are  different ;  for 
they  are  themselves  essentials,  and  not  otherwise  than  es- 
sentially can  essentials  differ.  And  all  the  while  essentially 
different,  they  yet  shall  have  a  common  name,  Person ;  for 
each  is  a  person. 

They  are  what  the  Greeks  called  Hypostases.  Hupo, 
"  up  from  underneath,"  and  stasis,  a  "  staying  "  or  a  "  lying ; " 
thus  an  up-staying  somewhat,  a  thing  fundamental,  a  base, 
an  upshoring,  an  absolute  essential — there  you  have  the 
meaning  of  Hypostasis.  Now  Substance,  Form  and  Force 
are  the  bed-rock  of  the  Universe.  In  men,  in  things,  you 
cannot  do  away  with  any  one  of  these,  unless  you  first  abolish 
the  existences.  They  are  the  three  props  and  underpin- 
nings of  all  being ;  the  Was,  the  Is,  and  the  Is-to-come 
thereof ;  the  Beginning,  the  Staying  and  the  End ;  the 
First,  the  Middle  and  the  Last.  Each  of  them  is  a  person 
when  the  being  that  possesses  them  is  personal ;  and  each  is 
impersonal  when  it  is  a  thing.  True,  the  word  "  person  " 
at  first  had  no  such  meaning  as  to-day.  At  first  a  mere 
mask,  a  huge  reverberating  helmet,  so  resounding  that  its 
resonance  gave  it  the  name,  it  next  came  to  mean  the  part 
or  character  which  the  mask  showed  forth,  and  which  the 
actor,  with  the  mask  to  help  him,  was  playing.  It  might  be 
the  mask  of  Jupiter,  the  mask  of  Apollo,  tho  mask  of  a 
nymph,  a  hero,  a  priest,  a  slave.  The  mask  was  so  painted 
as  to  represent  the  rdle  or  character ;  and  role  or  character 
was  all  the  word  then  meant.  From  the  stage  it  passed 
into  daily  use,  and  then  it  meant  the  part  or  function  filled 
by  any  of  us  players  on  that  stage  which  is  the  world.  The 


211 

office  or  employment  of  a  man,  and  not  the  man's  self,  was 
what  the  word  then  stood  for ;  even  as  in  the  theatre  it  had 
stood,  not  for  the  player's  self,  but  always  for  some  man  or 
some  deity  whom  the  player  was  trying  to  make  seem  pres- 
ent, or,  in  other  words,  to  represent.  But  when  it  passed 
into  modern  tongues,  its  basal  meaning — mask  or  domino — 
was  lost ;  and  with  it  was  lost  the  meaning  of  role  or  func- 
tion; and  thereupon  all  men  were  called  "persons,"  without 
thought  of  any  part  they  might  be  filling.  Besides,  every 
man  but  self  is  regarded  chiefly  from  his  use  to  somebody  or 
his  situation  as  to  somebody — generally  (with  motive  good 
or  evil)  his  use  or  situation  as  to  one's  self.  He  is  regarded 
in  the  light  of  his  function,  his  occupation,  his  relation  us- 
ward.  What  fox  ever  looked  on  goose  as  Anser  cinereus,  or 
saw  in  her  aught  but  a  good  square  meal  f  Whatever  a  man 
is  good  for  or  bad  for,  that  is  what  (to  us)  he  is ;  and  that  is 
really  what  dubs  him  "  person."  And  since  every  one  is 
good  or  bad  for  something  and  has  some  function  and  plays 
some  character,  every  one  is  justly  called  a  " person."  Even 
your  bootblack  is  a  persona,  in  the  strict  and  true  old  class- 
ical sense.  Nay,  the  condemned  murderer  is  a  persona, 
with  the  noose  already  under  his  ears.  For  has  not  he  also 
a  role,  a  cast,  a  function,  a  part,  an  office,  a  capacity,  a  busi- 
ness, an  occupation  ?  namely,  that  he  swing  by  the  neck  and 
be  choked  off  for  a  proof  and  example  that  the  law  holds 
human  life  to  be  most  sacred  and  that  life  may  not  by  the 
law  be  taken?  But  to-day  who  thinks  of  this?  or  means 'a 
Personage  or  Impersonation  when  he  says  "  person  ? "  Sup- 
pose you  could  speak  with  a  citizen  of  old  Rome,  and  he 
should  ask,  "  What  think  you  of  Varro,  the  new  actor,  in 
"  Prometheus  Bound  "  f  Are  you  impressed  the  most  with 
his  acting  or  with  his  magnificent  physique?  And  suppose 
you  should  answer.  "  If  I  may  judge  of  him,  the  person  is 
far  the  finer  of  the  two.'7  Now,  by  "  person  "  you  would 
mean  physique,  and  not  at  all  the  acting.  But  by  "  person  " 
the  Roman  would  understand  you  to  mean  this  player's 


212 

acting  and  his  rendering  of  Prometheus,  and  never  the 
player's  physique.  A  vast  change,  truly !  Yet  all  the  three 
great  modern  uses  of  persona  lay  half  unfolded  within  it 
from  the  time  when  it  had  come  to  mean  "  character "  or 
"office."  They  lay  within  it  as  chick  in  half -hatched  egg,  or 
as  corn  in  the  freshly  sprouted  ear  ;  not  quite  visible,  but  in 
due  time  forthcoming.  And  in  all  those  uses,  the  inmost 
protoplastic  thought  and  mental  picture  was  that  of  a  man- 
shaped  persona,  of  the  Human — of  the  voluntary,  intelligent, 
executive  Human.  For  naught  but  the  Human  was  really 
an  actor  or  persona  upon  the  earth ;  all  other  beings  and 
things  thereon  were  nopersonce,  no  actors/  they  were  mere 
agents  and  reagents,  doing  his  bidding  and  acted  upon  by 
him. 

The  universal  and  truly  catholic  belief,  then,  is  this : 

That  we  see  each  man  in  trinity,  and  see  trinity  in  unity ; 
neither  commixing  the  persons,  nor  dividing  the  substance. 
Three  persons  in  one  manhood,  and  one  man  in  three  per- 
sons, are  to  be  reckoned.  There  is  one  person  of  the  soul; 
another  of  the  body ;  and  another  which  proceeds  from  soul 
and  body,  and  bears  both  of  them  forth  to  the  world.  And 
yet  there  are  not  three  men,  but  One  man.  For  as  by  our 
mental  constitution  we  are  obliged  to  acknowledge  that  each 
of  these  three  persons  by  itself  is  man,  so  by  common  sense 
are  we  forbidden  to  say  of  a  man  or  an  individual  that  there 
are  three. 

These  three  persons  who  make  up  one  sole  man  do  not 
stand  side  by  side ;  but  they  stand  concentric.  The  first  is 
inside  the  second,  and  the  second  is  outside  the  first ;  and 
from  these  two  on  every  side  proceeds  the  third  still  further 
outwardly,  even  unto  others.  He  who  knows  aught  about 
God  the  Lord,  will  know  thereby  somewhat  about  man  also. 
For  the  one  is  made  in  the  image  and  likeness  of  the  other. 

Nobody  doubts  that  these  three  persons  in  man  make  one 
sole  individual,  not  three ;  and  the  reason  is  that  with  only 
one  of  the  three  have  the  most  of  us  anything  to  do.  Sep- 


213 

arate  and  apart  from  the  body,  there  are  no  dealings  what- 
ever with  the  soul  or  inner  person,  unless  it  be  by  the  table- 
tippers.  Separate  and  apart  from  the  soul,  there  are  no  deal- 
ings whatever  with  the  body  or  outer  person,  unless  it  be  by 
the  undertakers.  With  the  soul  and  body  conjoined  and  forth- 
flowing,  with  spirit  and  incarnation  combined  into  energy, 
lie  all  our  present  dealings ;  and,  for  us  breadwinners,  this 
third  person,  this  man-shaped  Energy,  sums  up  the  indi- 
vidual. Hence,  for  us  breadwinners  I  say,  "  person "  has 
come  by  degrees  to  mean  the  same  as  "individual." 

In  bread  winning,  this  change  of  meaning  in  the  word  per- 
son works  little  mischief.  In  theology,  the  mischief  might 
grow  till  it  should  overthrow  the  creed  called  Athanasian. 
Three  invented  individuals  will  not  become  less  than  three  by 
considering  them  to  be  Divine.  It  might  be  thought  at  first 
that,  with  three  Gods,  there  would  be  at  the  worst  only  two 
Gods  too  many.  It  will  be  found  at  last  that  a  belief  in  two 
Gods  too  many  turns  slowly  to  a  belief  in  one  God  less  than 
one. 


A  FAMILIAR  MYSTERY. 

"  It  is  highly  probable,"  says  Dean  Swift  in  one  of  his  ser- 
mons, "  that  if  God  should  see  fit  to  reveal  to  us  the  great 
"  mystery  of  the  Trinity,  or  some  other  mysteries  in  our  holy 
"  religion,  we  should  not  be  able  to  understand  them,  unless 
"  He  would  at  the  same  time  think  fit  to  bestow  upon  us 
"  some  new  powers  or  faculties  of  the  mind  which  we  want 
"  at  present,  and  which  are  reserved  to  the  day  of  resurrec- 
"  tion  to  life  eternal.  .  .  .  There  is  no  miracle  mentioned 
"  in  Holy  Writ  which,  if  it  is  strictly  examined,  is  not  as 


214 

."  much  contrary  to  common  reason  and  as  much  a  mystery 
"  as  this  doctrine  of  the  Trinity." 

Whatever  may  be  thought  of  the  Dean  in  respect  to  other 
matters,  it  will  not  be  denied  that  here  he  states  an  opinion 
which  had  been  universal,  in  the  church  and  out  of  it,  down 
to  his  time. 

It  is  commonly  said,  that  the  Divine  Trinity  is  a  mystery 
and  cannot  be  understood.  What  is  Divine  and  heavenly 
must  certainly  remain  mysterious,  until  it  is  set  forth  by 
something  earthly  analogous  to  it.  The  reason  is,  that  no 
knowledge  can  come  to  us  except  through  some  of  the  five 
senses ;  and  these  senses  all  look  out  upon  the  earth,  and 
not  upon  heaven  and  God.  But  because  there  is  an  analogy 
between  the  things  of  earth  and  the  things  of  heaven,  it 
comes  about  that  when  the  senses  of  the  body  perceive  an 
earthly  thing,  the  senses  of  the  mind  can,  by  virtue  of  that 
analogy,  perceive  a  heavenly  thing.  And  herein  lies  the 
power  of  parable,  as  a  method  of  instruction  in  Divine  and 
heavenly  things. 

Now  if  it  is  true  that  a  Trinity  is  inherent  in  God's  na- 
ture, and  if  God  has  made  all  earthly  things,  and  if  wise  and 
pious  men  are  ever  finding  traces  of  God  inherent  in  the 
things  of  earth,  it  should  seem  strange  if  they  fail  to  find 
there  a  trace  of  God's  inherent  Trinity.  And  every  wise  and 
pious  man  must  allow  that  if  he  finds  no  trace,  the  reason 
more  likely  is  that  he  has  not  looked  well  enough,  than  that 
no  trace  is  there.  For  if  Matter  is  not  self-made,  but  came 
from  God ;  and  if,  as  the  church  believes,  the  Trine  is  so  deep 
and  thorough  in  God  that,  without  it,  God  were  not  God,  it 
must  follow  that  in  Matter  also,  as  coming  from  Hun,  the 
Trine  is  so  deep  and  thorough  that,  without  it,  Matter  could 
not  be  Matter.  This,  I  say,  is  a  conclusion  of  fact  which 
reason  reaches.  I  shall  now  show  that  the  fact  itself  is 
apparent  to  the  very  senses,  whether  it  be  a  reasonable  fact 
or  not. 

That  there  is  a  Trinity  in  God  no  man  may,  or  should,  be 


215 

compelled  to  believe.  That  there  is  a  Trinity  in  Matter 
every  sane  man  can  be  compelled  to  believe.  It  can  be 
shown  before  his  bodily  eyes,  not  only  that  the  Trine  exists  in 
Matter  everywhere,  and  in  every  state  of  Matter,  but  also 
what  the  nature  of  each  of  the  Trine  is,  and  also  that  the 
Trine  makes  One  there;  and  that  unless  the  Trine  there 
made  One  and  were  One,  110  one  thing  could  be  imagined  to 
exist ;  and  that  in  every  real  thing  which  is  a  Unity,  there  is, 
of  an  inborn  necessity,  wrapped  up  a  Trinity. 

Let  us  find  and  clearly  recognize  the  first  element  of  this 
Trine.  Take  any  object  you  please,  whether  of  nature  or  of 
art :  let  us  say  this  quill  with  which  I  am  writing.  The  quill 
has  Substance  for  one  element  of  its  being.  Whether  it  be 
a  goose-quill,  which  is  good  for  writing,  or  a  hen's  quill, 
which  is  different  in  its  texture  and  is  not  so  good,  there  is 
some  Substance  in  it. 

In  trimming  it,  I  may  have  given  it  a  hard  nib,  or  a  soft 
nib,  and  I  may  have  shaped  it  well  or  ill ;  but  Substance  is 
there  just  the  same.  I  may  break  it  in  pieces,  and  make  it 
useless  as  a  pen  ;  I  may  even  burn  it ;  but  if  I  preserve  in 
one  place  the  gases  as  well  as  the  ashes  of  it,  there  is  there 
in  that  place  just  as  much  Substance  as  before,  although  the 
form  is  destroyed.  This  element  has  been  called  Substance, 
from  the  Latin  sub,  up,  and  stare,  to  stand  or  stay ;  sub- 
stare  is  to  stand  up  or  stand  firm ;  and  substantia  or  sub- 
stance is  anything  which  stands  thus,  and  therefore  cannot 
be  toppled  over  or,  in  a  deeper  sense,  be  crushed  out  of 
being.  Similar  is  the  meaning  of  sub-sistere,  to  subsist ;  in 
which  sister e  is  a  reduplicated  form  of  stare ;  to  subsist  mean- 
ing to  stand  up  continually,  and  being  applicable  more  partic- 
ularly to  those  living  things  which,  because  they  constantly 
change  their  substance,  must  constantly  be  supplied  or  fed 
with  fresh  substance,  else  they  will  not  sub-sist  or  "  stand 
up  steadily,"  but  on  the  contrary  will  dwindle,  droop,  peak, 
pine,  wilt,  wither  and  die.  The  book  men,  however,  have 
thought  that  the  sub  in  substare  and  subsistere  has  the  force 


of  "  under,"  and  thus  that  substare  means  "to  stand  under" 
and  that  substantia  means  "  what  stands  under  "  or,  as  we 
say  in  English,  the  Underlying.  The  reason  why  they 
thought  so  was  that  they  were  book  men,  and,  therefore  im- 
agined that  the  savage  who  coined  the  word  substare  was  a 
metaphysician,  and  spent  his  time  in  thinking  of  the  Seem- 
ing and  the  Underlying,  and  had  no  opportunity  to  observe 
that  substantial  objects  in  Nature  are  objects  that "  stand  up  " 
against  attack,  whereas  unsubstantial  objects  always  cave  in 
when  attacked.  But  it  is  useless  to  try  to  drive  this  imagin- 
ation out  of  the  book  man's  brain.  Let  it  stay.  Let  sub- 
stantia be  the  Underlying ;  since  anything  that  will  really 
"  stand  up  "  against  attack  must,  it  is  true,  at  the  same  time 
have  something  in  it  that  underlies  the  outside,  and  enables 
the  thing  to  stand  up  by  virtue^of  its  outside's  receiving  re- 
inforcement thus  from  within.  Let  us  then  treat  Substance 
as  the  Underlying,  and  Form  as  what  overlies  it. 

In  this  quill  pen  of  mine,  what  overlies  the  underlying  is 
the  form  in  which  it  appears — as  a  well-shaped  pen,  as  an 
ill-shaped  pen,  or,  perhaps,  a  spoiled  or  used-up  pen,  or  even 
as  a  pen  reduced  to  gas  and  ashes.  The  form  of  it  may 
change ;  the  substance,  or  underlying  of  it,  changes  never. 

No  man  ever  saw  that  Underlying  :  no  man  ever  shall  see 
it.  Only  through  its  overlying  or  form  can  it  be  seen.  The 
form  reveals  it.  Our  knowledge  of  Matter  is  in  no  sense  a 
knowledge  of  its  Underlying  or  Substance,  but  is  in,  every 
sense  a  knowledge  of  its  Form.  Whoever  claims  to  have 
climbed  up  to  an  understanding  of  the  Underlying  by  some 
other  way  than  Form,  is,  intellectually,  a  thief  and  robber, 
and  pretends  to  be  the  owner  of  a  knowledge  which  he  does 
not  own,  and  cannot  possibly  acquire. 

The  second  element  in  everything  is  the  Mode  in  which 
its  Substance  exists.  I  have  already  called  it  Form.  It  may 
be  also  called  Structure,  and  even  Shape,  provided  the 
inward  shape  as  well  as  the  outward  be  meant.  The  true 
English  expression  for  it  is  Build;  which,  philologically,  is  the 


217 

English  word  nearest  to  the  Latin  forma.  One  distinction 
between  Substance  and  Form  is  this  ;  that  the  substance  of 
anything  cannot  be  conceived  of,  without  some  form  ;  but 
the  form  of  everything  can  be  conceived  of,  without  any  sub- 
stance— at  least  without  any  of  the  substance  of  that  partic- 
ular thing.  Hence  it  is  that  Plans  and  Outlines  are 
recognized  as  entities,  although  the  Substance  is  lacking.  A 
book  might  be  written  about  quill-pens,  for  example,  in 
which  the  different  kinds  of  them  would  be  described  by 
their  forms  alone  ;  and  this  by  language  and  by  drawings 
and  pictures — all  without  any  suggestion  of  the  underlying 
Substance  ;  and  still  that  book  would  be  recognized  as 
dealing  with  very  entities.  But  Fonn  without  Substance  is 
nothing.  As  Substance  cannot  exist  without  Form,  some 
form ;  so  Form  cannot  exist  without  Substance,  some  sub- 
stance. If  the  substance  is  left  to  itself  to  shape  its  own 
form,  it  gives  birth  to  some  form  springing  from  its  very 
nature  ;  and  that  form  is  then  its  Offspring ;  and  is,  as  any 
one  may  see,  the  express  image  of  the  father  substance.  The 
external  form  is  the  express  image  of  the  substance  extern- 
ally ;  and  the  internal  form  or  structure  is  the  express  image 
of  the  substance  internally.  As  for  Matter's  Substance  or 
Underlying,  it  is  the  Cause  or  Father  of  all  its  Form ;  it, 
the  Underlying,  is  hidden  ;  it  dwells  in  darkness  inacces- 
sible ;  but  its  Son  or  Offspring,  which  is  Form,  brings  it 
forth  to  view.  And  these  two,  Substance  and  Form,  go 
daily  to  the  making  up  of  everything,  and  without  them  was 
nothing  made  which  was  made. 

But  wherever  these  two  are,  if  they  really  are,  there  is  a 
third.  This  third  is  the  thing  itself — whatever  it  be — 
which  consists  of  that  particular  substance,  disposed  into 
that  particular  form.  I  have  here  in  my  retort  the  ashes 
and  the  gases  of  that  quill-pen,  and  they  are  all  the  sub- 
stance of  it  and  they  have  none  of  its  form.  I  have  here  in 
my  book  a  perfect  description  and  drawing  of  that  particu- 
lar pen,  its  entire  form ;  and  yet  I  have  none  of  its  sub- 


218 

stance.  That  substance  and  that  form  are  now  not  one,  but 
two,  perfectly  two. 

Before  I  burned  the  quill  I  had  still  another  thing,  a  quill- 
pen,  of  that  particular  kind.  If  you  do  not  believe  that  this 
third  thing  is  utterly  a  third,  and  different  from  the  other 
two,  try  to  make  either  of  the  other  two  serve  for  a  pen, 
and  you  will  be  convinced.  That  third  thing  which  I  at 
that  time  had,  and  which  has  since  been  destroyed,  consisted 
of  that  particular  substance  and  of  that  particular  form,  and 
it  proceeded  from  those  two,  and  was  produced  by  the 
union  of  those  two,  and  it  was  destroyed  by  the  severance  of 
those  two.  It — the  pen — was  the  inevitable  outcome  of  the 
two,  and  in  it  they  two  were  no  longer  two,  but  one  ;  and 
there  the  three  were  one,  before  our  very  eyes. 

If  you  will  search  creation  through,  you  shall  find  no  thing 
in  which  this  three  does  not  exist,  and  just  thus  exist ;  and 
shall  find  I  have  truly  said  that  the  three  is  by  necessity  in 
all  things,  and  that  in  all  things  it  by  necessity  makes  One. 
Of  necessity  I  have  said  "  is "  and  "  makes,"  because  the 
Three  are  One,  and  above  all  other  qualities,  are  singular. 
If  I  were  writing  about  things  imaginary  and  not  real, 
then  I  could  and  would  use  the  plural  form.  For  Substance 
and  Form  when  not  united  into  something,  are  imaginary, — 
as  imaginary  as  are  Wish  and  Perception  when  not  projected 
into  Deeds  : — as  visionary  as  are  all  the  hankerings  after  the 
Good  and  all  the  glimpses  of  the  True,  when  not  united 
into  an  upright  life  and  realized  there. 

Now,  betwixt  God  and  Matter  there  is  no  difference  as  to 
quality  save  that  God  is  alive  and  Infinite,  and  Matter  is 
dead  and  finite  ;  but  from  this  difference  flow  differences  in- 
finite. The  Living,  in  its  elements,  is  Wish,  Thought,  Act. 
The  dead  does  not  wish,  and  does  not  think,  and  does  not 
act  from  wish  and  thought.  With  God,  Wish  is  Substance, 
or  the  Underlying.  It  is  what,  in  themselves,  men  call 
Heart,  or  Liking  or  Desire.  To  it,  in  the  ethereal  Trinity 
in  the  world  of  Matter,  the  sun's  heat  answers ;  and  when  a 


219 

man's  desires  are  aroused,  he  is  said  to  warm  up,  and  to  be 
heated  and  inflamed.  With  God,  Thought  is  the  Form  or 
Manifestation,  the  Logos  or  Wisdom.  It  is  what,  in  them- 
selves, men  call  Brain,  or  Judgment,  or  Perception,  or  Plan. 
To  it  answers,  in  the  world  of  Matter,  the  light  of  the  sun ; 
and  when  a  man  sees  the  mode  or  way  in  which  he  may  ac- 
complish his  desires,  he  is  said  to  get  light  on  that  subject ; 
and  if  not,  he  is  said  to  be  all  in  the  dark. 

With  God,  the  Third  Element  which  is  the  outcome  of 
His  Divine  Wish,  according  to  and  through  His  Divine 
Thoughts  or  Judgment,  is  called  the  Holy  Spirit.  It  is 
called  Spirit  from  "  spiritus"  a  breath  or  breathing;  and 
the  reason  is  that  breathing  is  the  sign  of  life,  and  so  is 
made  to  stand  for  life  itself.  Now  life,  in  the  moral  sense, 
means  the  course  of  life — the  whole  outward  development 
of  Desire  and  Thought  into  Act.  And  whenever  in  men 
there  are  desires  from  God  and  thoughts  from  God,  devel- 
oped into  daily  life,  then  the  Holy  Spirit  is  said  to  have 
effect  upon  them  ;  and  then  in  their  lives  the  good  Desire 
and  the  wise  Thought  are  made  into  One  which  is  Act ;  and 
in  such  Act  the  Three,  which  are  Desire,  Thought  and  Act, 
are  One.  This  third  principle  which  comes  from  God  may 
be  compared  to  the  third  principle  in  the  ether's  agitation 
produced  by  the  solar  energy.  It  is  known  as  Actinism  ; 
and  in  it  the  Heat  and  the  Light  are  united,  and  from  it 
come  all  vegetable  growth  and  all  fruitage.  For  heat  is  at 
bottom  the  essential  tremor  of  the  ether  ;  and  Light  is  at 
bottom  the  modes  and  differentiations  of  its  forms  of  tremor ; 
but  Actinism  is  the  very  beating  of  the  ether-waves  against 
those  substances  which  grow ;  it  is  the  effect  and  outcome  of 
the  substantial  tremor,  according  to  its  mode  of  trembling.* 


*  I  do  not  strictly  follow  the  present  nomenclature.  But  the  three 
things  of  which  I  speak — wave-substance,  wave-mode,  and  wave- 
impact—respectively  underlie  all  the  manifestations  of  heat,  light. 


220 

When  men  are  thus  acted  upon  by  the  Divine  Warmth 
and  by  the  Divine  Light,  united  into  an  upright  Life,  they 
are  said  to  bring  forth  the  fruits  of  the  Spirit :  they  are 
called  trees  of  righteousness ;  and  on  them  God,  as  the  Sun 
of  Kighteousness,  is  said  to  be  shining. 

Not  only  in  the  moral  world  exists  this  third  element  of 
God.  All  things  have  been  made  from  His  Desire,  and  by 
His  Wisdom ;  and  His  efficient  making  of  them  is  the  working 
of  His  Spirit.  The  things  which  have  been  made  are  not  His 
Spirit ;  but  the  combination  of  His  Desire  and  Wisdom  in 
the  act  of  making  them  is  His  Spirit.  This  it  is  which  pro- 
ceeds from  the  Father  and  the  Son,  even  as  Act  does  always 
proceed  from  Desire  and  Thought,  wherever  the  Desire  is 
genuine,  and  the  Thought  is  adequate  thereto. 

The  doctrine  of  God's  Incarnation  also  can  be  illustrated 
by  the  analogies  of  Matter ;  but  here  is  not  the  place  for 
that.  It  should  be  observed  that  though  there  are  three 
Personce  or  Hypostases  in  God,  there  are  not  three  Persons, 
as  that  word  is  now  commonly  understood.  No  scholar,  of 
whatever  creed,  will  render  persona  by  the  English  "  person" 
in  its  modern  use.  The  change  from  the  ancient  meaning 
of  "  person "  has  been  gradual,  but  latterly  is  complete. 
Persona  means  Mask,  and  thence  Hole,  Function  or  Char- 
acter. The  Masks,  Functions  or  Characters  of  God  are 
Three.  In  one  of  them  He  acts  upon  the  Heart ;  in  another 
on  the  Head ;  in  a  third  on  the  Life.  But  the  one  sole 
Actor  who  wears  (and  is)  these  Personce,  Masks  or  Charac- 


and  actinism ;  and  these  latter  names,  although  at  present  restricted 
to  phenomena  already  observed,  are  capable  of  being  extended  to 
all  phenomena  to  be  observed  hereafter ;  and  in  their  final  extension 
will  answer  respectively  to  the  substance,  the  mode,  and  the  impact 
of  the  ether-agitation.  There  is  no  good  reason  why  the  impact  of 
the  wave  upon  a  mirror  should  not  be  recognized  as  actinism,  as 
readily  as  its  impact  upon  a  leaf.  The  results  alone  differ ;  the 
wave-impact  is  the  same  in  either  case. 


221 

ters  in  ths   Divine  Drama  is   One  Divine  Man,  the  Incar- 
nate. 

IL 

I  HAVE  already  shown  that  in  every  visible  thing  there  is 
a  certain  trinity;  and  that  each  member  goes  to  make  the 
thing  up,  and  that  no  thing  could  be,  unless  each  member 
of  this  trinity  were  in  it.  But  since  the  reasoning  I  used  is 
new  to  some  minds,  and  therefore  by  these  may  not  have 
been  well  grasped,  I  outline  it  here  anew. 

I  am  a  builder,  and  am  under  contract  to  put  up  a  house. 

First  of  all,  there  is  the  stuff  or  material  out  of  which  it 
shall  be  built.  Wood,  stone,  brick,  and  some  nails  and 
mortar,  hauled  to  that  spot, — these,  or  some  of  them,  I  must 
have. 

But  these  are  not  enough.  Nobody  can  live  there  with 
all  these  things  just  thrown  down  in  a  heap.  That  stuff 
must  be  put  into  the  right  shape ;  and  this  right  arranging 
of  it  we  call  building  /  which  means  to  give  it  a  build  or 
structure.  The  build,  plan  or  arrangement,  by  which  the 
material  is  shaped  and  ordered  into  a  house,  is  then  a  second 
necessary  element.  The  Greeks  called  this  element  logos  ; 
a  good  old  word  from  the  root  of  our  word  "  lay ; "  a 
root  meaning  to  set,  place  or  arrange,  and  which  in  Latin 
turns  out  " lex"  and  in  English  makes  the  word  " law "  as 
well  as  "  lay,"  and  which  bears  on  its  face  its  true  meaning, 
without  need  of  theological  speculation. 

The  "  law  "  of  anything  is  that  which  is  laid  down  con- 
cerning it  by  the  law  giver ;  and  in  the  realm  of  nature  this 
means  the  plan  by  which  the  thing  itself  is  laid  down  or 
placed ;  the  way  it  lies  /  the  "  lay  "  of  it ;  its  inner  and  outer 
structure.  This  logos,  or  "  lay  "  of  the  house  materials,  is 
usually  indicated  by  plans  or  drawings. 

But  the  plans  or  drawings  alone  will  not  serve  for  a  resi- 
dence any  better  than  the  heap  of  raw  materials  would 


282 

serve.  Neither  makes  what  we  call  a  house ;  and  I  shall 
not,  as  builder,  get  my  pay  for  furnishing  either  or  both. 
Nor  will  laying  the  plans  alongside  the  stuff,  however  near, 
make  a  house.  The  plan  or  arrangement  must  be  ulteriorly 
united  with  the  stuff;  must  lie  in  its  very  bosom,  so  to 
speak.  The  stuff  must  take  on  the  plan  as  its  very  form, 
and  the  plan  must  take  in  the  stuff  as  its  very  substance. 
The  house  which  thus  at  last  comes  forth,  is  other  than  the 
stuff,  and  other  than  the  plan.  It  is  a  new  thing  made  up 
of  those  two,  a  real  "  Proceeding  "  from  them ;  a  third  es- 
sential. 

I  have  said  that  no  one  can  or  should  be  compelled  to  be- 
lieve there  is  a  trinity  in  God.  I  say  so  because  no  one  can 
be  compelled  to  believe  God  is.  But  if  any  one  chooses  to 
believe  that  last,  he  must  believe  in  a  trinity,  and  in  just  this 
trinity  in  God.  Whoever  wishes  may  say  he  believes  in  some 
other  kind  of  trinity  also ;  but  this  trinity,  at  least,  he  must 
and  shall  (if  he  be  sane)  admit ;  and  he  cannot,  for  any  other 
conjecturable  trinity  than  this  one,  claim  that  it  consists,  as 
doctrine  requires,  of  hypostases,*  or — in  English — "  funda- 
mentals" or  "  substantiate. " 

The  reason  is  that  the  hypostases  or  foundations  which  I 
have  mentioned,  exhaust  the  whole  region  of  the  fundamen- 
tal. And  they  are  fundamental  not  only  to  material  exist-  " 


*  From  hupoy  up  from  below,  and  stasis,  a  standing  or  a  staying. 
Although  histemi  (whence  stasis)  is  properly  intransitive,  its  deriva- 
tive takes  also  the  same  transitive  sense  which  the  root's  English 
form,  "stay,"  takes  with  us.  The  common  meaning  of  hypostasis 
can  be  put  into  the  same  English  roots,  and  thus  be  rendered  *  *  up- 
stay;"  that  is,  "  under-prop,"  basis,  foundation,  or  fundamental. 
The  shortest  examination  into  the  common  meaning  which  the  word 
bore  when  first  picked  out  to  stand  for  the  elementary  principles  of 
existence,  will  prove  more  instructive  than  years  of  theological  in- 
vestigation. The  men  who  first  used  such  words  in  theology,  used 
them  to  describe  what  they  saw  ;  afterward  men  used  them  from 
memory. 


223 

• 

ence,  but  to  every  imaginable  kind  of  existence.  For  noth- 
ing and  nobody  can  exist  except  from  some  substance  ;  nor 
unless  under  some  form  ;  nor  unless  these  two,  in  it  or  in 
him,  fuse  into  a  third,  which  is  neither  one  nor  the  other, 
but  is  both. 

Yet  because  the  third  hypostasis  of  matter  which  I  have 
described,  looks  very  unlike  the  third  Divine  hypostasis  as 
it  has  been  described,  I  shall  now  show  that  the  third  here 
described,  looks  different  from  what  it  really  is  ;  and  that  in 
reality  it  is  perfectly  like  the  third  Divine  hypostasis.  Let 
us  remember  (and  in  order  thereunto,  let  us  well  learn,  if 
need  be,  from  books  of  science)  this  thing : — As  for  all  we 
perceive  of  the  outside  world  (coming  as  it  does  through 
some  of  the  five  senses),  by  none  of  the  senses  has  ever  man 
perceived  an  external  object ;  but  has  always  and  solely  per- 
ceived certain  impressions  made  upon  his  senses  by  forces 
proceeding  from  the  object  said  to  be  perceived.  I  say 
that  the  third  hypostasis  of  matter — the  pen  itself,  the 
house  itself — is,  for  us,  this  only, — A  PROCEEDING  FORCE. 
Force  impresses  the  senses;  if  the  force  is  weak,  the 
impression  is  weak ;  if  strong,  then  strong ;  if  wholly  lack- 
ing, then  no  impression,  and  for  us  the  thing  then  is  not. 
The  impression  which  we  were  deeming  to  be  the  impression 
of  an  object,  is  in  truth  merely  the  impression  of  a  force  pro- 
ceeding from  that  object.  And  thus  the  third  to  substance 
andjforra — the  third  which  we  call  the  thing  itself — is  force. 
And  substance,  form  and  force,  are  one  and  the  same  at  bot- 
tom ;  just  as  heat,  light,  and  actinism  are  one  at  bottom. 

Force  is  the  outcome  of  substance  and  form.  Every  one 
may  know  this  if  he  knows  that  without  substance  there  can 
be  no  form,  and  without  substance  no  force ;  and  that 
active  force  cannot  be  developed  from  any  substance,  unless 
a  new  form  be  developed  ;  and  that  force  of  resistance  can- 
not be  retained  except  as  far  as  form  is  retained.  In  other 
words,  as  scientists  well  know,  the  production  of  force 
requires  always  a  change  of  form :  and  change  of  form 


224 

brings  always  an  evolution  of  force.  There  is  no  mystery 
in  these  things  themselves  ;  but  men  who,  in  thinking,  have 
words  and  not  things  in  mind,  are  never  out  of  mystery. 

Force  may  be  relatively  aggressive  ;  or,  relatively,  it  may 
be  only  the  force  of  resistance.  If  it  does  not  strike  upon, 
or  is  not  struck  by,  a  sentient  force,  no  one  senses  it ;  and, 
for  us,  it  is  not,  or  it  is  not  as  yet.  But  whenever  it  strikes 
upon,  or  is  struck  by,  a  sentient  surface,  it  impresses ;  and 
that  in  it  which  impresses  is  substance  and  form.  If  there 
is  no  substance,  there  can  be  no  sensing  of  it.  If  it  has 
substance,  but  the  substance's  form  do  not  hold,  it  cannot 
be  sensed.  Could  some  substance  be  made  with  its  forms 
so  yielding  that  an  infinitely  small  force  of  impact  would 
destroy  those  forms,  that  substance  would  not  be  felt. 

In  sight,  we  do  not  perceive  the  thing  itself ;  but  what 
we  perceive  is  a  little  picture  on  the  retina.  This  picture  is 
not  the  nerve-surface  there,  but  is  a  tremor  of  it ;  and  this 
tremor  is  the  surging  of  the  ether- wave  which,  starting  from 
the  sun  or  some  other  light,  rebounds  afterward  from  an 
object  into  the  eye ;  and  the  force  which  causes  it  to  re- 
bound is  the  force  of  resistance,  at  the  surface  of  the  object, 
against  the  surge  of  the  wave  ;  and  the  wave  rebounds  as 
water-waves  rebound  from  a  bluff  shore.  But  if  the  parti- 
cles of  the  object  do  not  resist  the  undulation,  but  answer 
to  its  swell,  and  heave  with  it,  the  object  is  said  to  be 
transparent ;  and  in  proportion  to  the  transparency  it  is  in- 
visible. Sight  is  then  the  impression  of  a  force ;  and  what 
we  sense  by  sight  is  force  only. 

In  hearing,  the  process  is  the  same ;  but  with  air- waves 
instead  of  ether-waves ;  and  the  waves  are  oftener  direct 
than  reflected.  In  feeling,  tasting  and  smelling,  there  are 
no  waves,  but  the  object,  or  sundry  particles  of  it,  in 
solid,  fluid,  or  gaseous  form,  are  borne  against  the  sen- 
tient surface,  or  the  sentient  surface  is  borne  against  them, 
as  the  case  may  be ;  and  they  impinge  upon  that  surface  with 
a  degree  of  force  which  may  be  either  aggressive  or  merely 


225 

resistant,  but  is  always  according  to  their  form  and  sub- 
stance. This  impression  makes  a  kind  of  stamp  upon  the 
sentient  surface  ;  and  that  stamp  is  all  that  we  sense.  With 
each  of  the  five  senses,  therefore,  what  we  perceive  is  not 
the  object  itself,  but  a  certain  force  proceeding  from  the 
substance  and  form  of  the  object,  and  composed  of  them, 
and  varying  as  they  vary. 

Just  thus  is  it  with  God  as  toward  us,  and  with  the  work- 
ings of  that  third  Divine  hypostasis,  the  Holy  Ghost. 
The  Divine  Substance  is  Wish  or  Motive  toward  Divine  act. 
The  Divine  Form  or  Idea  (for  "  idea  "  means  simply  "  a  visi- 
ble form  ")  is  Thought,  or  the  plan  for  action.  The  Divine 
Force  is  the  activity  of  the  Divine.  Now  just  as  material 
substance  and  material  form  cannot  be  perceived  in  them- 
selves; but  what  is  perceived  of  them  is  a  force  from  them 
impressing  us  ;  so  the  Divine  Wish,  which  is  Goodness,  and 
the  Divine  Thought,  which  is  Wisdom,  cannot  be  perceived 
in  themselves,  but  are  perceived  only  by  a  certain  force  or 
energy  from  them  proceeding.  And  this  is  the  old,  old 
doctrine  of  the  church  (never  clearly  seen,  but  always 
lodged  in  upright  hearts),  that  without  God's  Holy  Spirit 
nothing  can  be  known  or  felt  of  Him. 

Whoever  will  look  at  only  a  reed  or  a  rush  with  care,  shall 
see  laid  bare  before  the  carnal  eye  each  doctrine  over  which 
the  church  for  eighteen  centuries — nay,  since  history  began 
— has  stumbled  and  stammered :  and  shall  see  all  as  if  it  lay 
beneath  a  microscopic  lens.  If  he  does  this  himself,  he  shall 
see  them,  and  better  and  swifter  than  one  can  tell  them  ; 
indeed  by  reading  they  cannot  be  really  seen. 


226 
THREE  PEKSONS  IN  ONE  GOD. 

Every  one  who  believes  that  Jesus  Christ  is  God  in  the 
flesh  believes  that  there  are  Three  Persons  in  One  God. 
There  are  also  those  who  believe,  or  say  they  believe,  in 
Three  Persons,  and  say  that  Jesus  Christ  is  God,  but  still 
at  heart  do  not  believe  Him  to  be  God,  because  really 
they  do  not  believe  in  a  God ;  but  they  think  they  believe.  I 
repeat  that  every  one  who  believes  Jesus  Christ  to  be  God, 
believes  that  God  is  in  Three  Persons.  I  should  add  that 
such  a  man  may  not  say  this.  He  may  say  just  the  opposite, 
and  he  may  suppose  that  he  believes  the  opposite. 

Now  since  a  very  great  deal  has  been  written  from  time 
to  time  about  the  Three  Persons,  and  since  all  those  who 
have  written  declare  that  they  do  not  know  anything  about 
the  matter,  and  all  those  who  have  read  declare  that  they 
also  do  not  know  anything  about  it,  I  shall  be  wise  if, 
in  adding  to  that  which  has  been  written,  I  add  the  least  by 
any  means  possible.  For  this  reason  I  shall  say  almost 
nothing  about  it ;  but  instead  I  shall  ask  the  reader,  and 
shall  try  to  lead  him,  to  put  before  his  mind's  eye  in  visible 
picture,  things  which  already  well  he  knows  and  believes, 
and  always  has  well  known  and  believed,  not  from  reading 
or  from  hearing,  but  from  information  of  his  own  five  wits, 
gathered  in  the  daily  life  of  bread- winning,  but  still  things 
which  perhaps  he  never  yet  with  plastic  art  mental  has 
fashioned  forth  in  imagination.  Should  he  find  himself 
able  to  set  these  things  before  the  mental  eye,  it  shall  matter 
very  little  whether  or  not  he  afterwards  reproduce  them  with 
the  tongue.  For  tongue-productions  are  verily  of  small 
importance ;  like  parrots  men  catch  them  up,  and  like  parrots 
rattle  them  off.  For  ages  men  have  been  talking  about  the 
Trinity  with  the  same  indisputable  but  unconscious  verity 
wherewith  for  ages  this  wise  bird  has  affirmed  her  desire  for 
.a  cracker. 

Skipping  over  many  matters  •  of  inducement,  it  may  be 


227 

said  briefly,  that  it  is  in  God's  image  that  man  is  made ;  and 
that  God  is  in  Three  Persons,  just  as  man — every  man — is 
in  three  persons.  That  every  man  is  in  three  persons  has 
never  perhaps  been  said,  but  always  it  has  been  known,  and 
known  to  almost  every  one.  And  the  reason  why  it  has  not 
much  been  said,  or  perhaps  never  been  said,  is  that  pretty 
Poll  never  yet  caught  the  phrase.  She  may  or  she  may  not 
catch  the  phrase  now.  A  young  bird  learns  well,  but  this 
one  is  some  eighteen  centuries  old.  The  best-known  things, 
however — the  deepest,  and  indeed  the  fundamental  concep- 
tions, the  very  hypostases  of  thought — are  not  spoken,  need 
not  be  spoken.  They  are  the  substantive  verbs  of  thought's 
own  picture  language  ;  they  are  always  implied  ;  or,  as  the 
grammarians  say,  are  understood,  like  the  Hebrew  verb  of 
being ;  are  understood  because  they  are  essential  to  all 
understanding. 

That  we  may  be  done  the  sooner,  I  pray  the  reader  to  fix 
upon  some  human  being  now  at  this  very  moment  bodily 
present  and  tangible. 

What  the  reader  (if  he  has  fixed  on  somebody)  sees  there, 
is  a  person.  Lay  now  your  hand  upon  that  person.  That 
upon  which  you  lay  your  hand  is  not  a  philosophical  or  ab- 
stract entity.  What  you  touch  is  known  as  the  person.  By 
the  "person"  here,  I  do  not  mean  the  man's  character,  I  mean 
his  physical  person.  If  you  strike  that  person  with  a  cane 
or  with  your  fist,  he  shall  have  a  remedy  at  the  law  against 
you  for  an  injury,  not  to  his  soul  or  his  moral  principles,  but 
to  his  person — to  one  hundred  and  sixty  pounds,  less  or 
more,  of  nitrogen,  hydrogen,  phosphates,  etc. 

At  this  very  moment,  whilst  we  are  talking  about  the 
matter,  you  are  clear  enough  that  the  substance  you  touched 
or  struck,  composed  of  those  chemicals,  is  a  person.  It  may 
be,  however,  that  in  a  moment,  when  we  come  to  speak  of 
something  else  as  a  person,  you  will  forget  this  first-men- 
tioned and  very  obvious  person,  and  perhaps  will  half  deny 
him.  Therefore  I  beg,  if  you  are  sure  that  by  general  con- 


228 

sent  the  name  "  person "  is  applied  to  the  substance  you 
touched  or  struck,  that  in  the  margin  of  this  page,  just  here 
abreast,  you  will  put  a  lead  pencil  mark,  One ;  thus,  (1) ;  and 
will  anchor  thus  here  upon  the  page  your  memory  of  that 
tangible  substance  as  a  person,  One  person,  (1). 

And  now  we  shall  take  a  leap — a  prodigious  leap,  I  do 
confess.  And  if  you  believe  not  in  personal  immortality, 
and  believe  not  the  Bible,  do  not  leap  or  try  to  leap,  but  let 
us  straightway  part  company.  The  person  whom  now  I  ask 
you  not,  indeed  to  look  at,  but  to  imagine  yourself  as  looking 
at,  is  quite  another  person  than  that  substance  which  you 
have  been  touching ;  is  indeed  a  person  whom  as  yet  you 
cannot  touch  or  even  see.  It  is  the  soul.  By  soul  I  mean 
the  man  himself — his  live  self,  his  very  personality ;  not  the 
bodily  person,  but  the  personal  spirit.  Such  person,  I  mean, 
in  distinction  from  the  the  bodily  frame,  as  rose  before  the 
Endor  witch,  coming  up  as  an  old  man  covered  with  a  man- 
tle, and  made  himself  out  to  be  Samuel ;  such  person  as  the 
witch  saw,  and  to  Saul  described  as  a  person.  I  mean  the 
soul-person — such  person  as,  distinguished  from  that  bodily 
person  which  lay  buried  "  in  a  valley  in  the  land  of  Moab 
over  against  Beth-peor,"  spoke  with  our  Lord  upon  the 
mount  of  transfiguration,  and  was  called  Moses.  The 
inner  person,  human  in  shape ;  a  double-ganger  to  the  body  ; 
such  person  as  the  Lord's  disciples  thought  that  Ehoda  had 
seen  and  mistaken  for  Peter's  mortal  self.  I  mean  the  per- 
son of  whom  Paul  speaks  as  caught  up  to  heaven  some  four- 
teen years  before ;  a  personal  spirit  so  consciously  human 
that  Paul  knew  not  (and  thrice  in  a  breath  repeats  that  he 
knew  not)  whether  that  person  was  body  or  was  spirit. 
This  inner  person,  I  say,  the  person  other  than  the  bodily 
and  buryable  person,  is  what  I  mean — a  person  Number 
Two.  I  pray  you,  if  you  believe  this  last  to  be  indeed  a  per- 
son, and  not  a  thing  such  as  is  the  body  when  deserted  by 
that  inner  person,  put  here  abreast  in  the  margin  a  second 
mark  (2),  in  order  that  you  may  know  this  person  from  the 


229 

other,  and  may  again  anchor  here  your  memory.  You  will 
find  it  hard  to  keep  the  two  apart.  Number  One  we  marked 
the  other ;  this  one  is  Number  Two ;  let  us  not  confound 
them. 

But  be  sure  he  is  not  the  other.  The  other  may  die  to- 
morrow, and  you  will  bury  him.  This  inner  person  will  not 
be  buried.  This  second  person  is  the  self,  the  very  he.  To 
this  person,  within  the  visible  person  of  the  crucified  thief, 
our  Lord  spoke,  saying,  "  This  day  " — not  at  the  crack  of 
doom — "shalt  thou  (thy  soul,  not  thy  body)  be  with  me  in 
paradise."  If  you  have  lost  wife  or  mother,  ask  yourself 
whether  now,  just  now  in  the  farther  land,  she  is  a  thing,  or 
is  she  a  person.  I  do  not  say  this  last  to  you  by  way  of 
argument.  It  proves  nothing.  I  do  not  seek  to  prove  any- 
thing. I  only  seek  to  bring  out  into  consciousness  the 
reader's  unconscious  thought,  if  his  mind  chance  to  be  like 
my  own ;  and  if  not,  then  well  and  good. 

In  time,  I  doubt  not,  science  will  enable  us  to  embalm  the 
body  so  cleverly  that  except  for  lack  of  a  heaving  of  the 
bosom  we  might  take  the  dead  woman  to  be  a  living  one. 
We  might  put  it  then  in  a  glass  case  and  keep  it  in  the 
house,  and  then,  with  help  of  our  new  Leyden-jar  Ariel, 
might  cause  a  smile  to  pass  over  its  face ;  might  make  it  nod 
in  recognition ;  might  even  make  it  pat  your  cheek.  Ah ! 
what  a  mockery !  You  would  spring  back  in  horror  from 
its  touch ;  for  the  soul — the  woman  herself — would  not  be 
there. 

Suppose,  again,  that  the  Spiritists  were  neither  deluders 
nor  deluded ;  and  suppose  a  hand,  ghostly,  but  for  all  the 
world  like  hers,  could  be  coaxed  out  of  a  dark  cabinet,  and 
be  made  to  smooth  your  forehead.  Should  you  believe  it  to 
be  her  spirit  hand,  were  not  that  a  worse  mockery  still? 
Her  own  true  body,  her  real,  familiar  self,  is  not  there,  and 
because  her  body  is  not  there,  neither  is  there  the  woman 
whom  you  loved.  A  third  person  she  was,  a  soul  in  a  body 
and  a  body  in  a  soul,  a  blending  of  the  two ;  no  corpse,  no 


230 

ghost.  Could  you  get  back  once,  if  only  for  an  instant,  that 
third  person,  would  not  her  touch  be  a  sweet  effluence  of 
soul  and  body  combined?  Always  it  brought  heaven  to 
you ;  it  took  of  her  soul  and  showed  it  unto  you,  it  took  of 
her  body  and  showed  it  unto  you  ;  it  partook  of  both ;  it  was 
your  Comforter. 

When  Elisha  and  his  servant  were  hemmed  in  by  the 
enemy,  the  servant  was  afraid.  Elisha  told  him  that  those 
who  were  with  them  were  more  than  those  who  were  against 
them ;  and  he  prayed  that  the  young  man's  eyes  might  be 
opened.  And  the  Lord  opened  the  young  man's  eyes,  and 
then  he  saw  about  Elisha  the  mountain  full  of  horses  and 
chariots  of  fire.  Now  this  servant  had  not  been  blind.  His 
opened  eyes  were  the  eyes  of  his  spirit.  The  fiery  chariots 
and  horses  were  of  the  spirit  world,  into  which  then  for  the 
first  time  he  was  seeing.  But  all  the  while  the  prophet's 
inner  eyes  had  been  open ;  he  was  steadily  a  seer ;  they  that 
then  were  called  prophets,  were  in  earlier  times  called  seers ; 
for  they  saw  with  the  eye  of  the  spirit,  seeing  spirits  and  the 
spirit  world.  At  this  day  of  disbelief  in  that  world's  exist- 
ence and  presence,  I  confess  that  to  the  modern  Christian 
all  these  stories  seem  but  idle.  Our  religious  teachers,  the 
prophets  of  to-day,  are  very  Balaams,  and  see  not ;  with 
them,  the  simple  folk  who  give  real  credence  to  that  world 
do  pass  for  superstitious  asses,  and  are  chidden  and  thrice 
are  smitten  by  the  pulpit  prophet  and  the  religious  editor. 

Yet  were  these  old  tales  really  believed,  how  easy  to  be- 
lieve that  every  one  is  made  up  of  three  persons'?  Only  look 
at  a  man — any  man — as  gross  and  coarse  a  man  as  you  can 
find. 

Most  evident  to  sense  is  his  bodily  person. 

Were  the  eyes  of  your  spirit  suddenly  opened,  and  did  you 
then  close  your  natural  eyes,  you  would  see,  not  his  body  but 
his  spirit ;  and  this  spirit  would  be  his  very  self,  the  very 
person  at  whom  you  are  looking. 

And  if  then,  with  your  spirit  eyes  still  open,  you  opened 


231 

also  your  outer  eyes,  you  would  see  both  body  and  spirit,  the 
two  combined,  a  man  formed  by  their  blending,  a  third  per- 
son, the  very  man  you  deal  with  in  this  world,  half  soul,  half 
body.  Only  you  would  be  seeing  this  inner  self  far  more 
clearly  than  men  mostly  suffer  it  to  be  seen.  You  would 
doubtless  be  seeing  it  far  more  ugly  or  else  far  more  beauti- 
ful than  ever  you  had  thought  possible. 

This  third  person,  not  soul,  not  body,  but  soul  and  body 
combined, — a  being  as  different  from  either  of  his  component 
elements  as  the  compound  called  water  is  different  from 
either  oxygen  or  hydrogen, — may  be  regarded  from  yet  an- 
other point  of  view. 

The  third  element  in  man  we  may  regard  as  his  activity, 
his  operation,  his  proceeding  energy.  The  series  in  him 
then  will  be,  first,  soul,  which  moves  to  activity  ;  second, 
body,  which  exercises  activity  ;  third,  activity  itself,  or 
active  operation. 

The  mistake  we  are  apt  to  make  with  regard  to  the  prin- 
ciple of  human  activity  or  operation,  is,  that  we  take  for 
activity  or  operation  the  mere  subsequent  result  of  that 
activity  or  operation.  Let  me  give  a  homely  illustration  : 
Out  of  a  piece  of  wood  let  me  proceed  to  whittle  a  toy, — 
some  readily  imaginable  toy  ;  a  toy-soldier,  let  us  say.  Now 
nine  men  out  of  ten  will  imagine  that  my  activity  or  oper- 
ation consists  in  the  passage  of  the  knife  about  the  wood 
and  into  the  wood ;  by  which  passage  the  soldier  is  gradually 
fashioned  forth.  And  therein,  practically,  the  nine  men  will 
be  exactly  right — right,  for  certain  practical  purposes ;  right 
for  the  purpose  of  the  manuf acture  of  toy-soldiers ;  right,  for 
the  purpose  of  selling  them  ;  right,  for  the  purpose  of  amus- 
ing children  with  them.  But  for  the  purposes  of  investigat- 
ing the  nature  of  me,  the  whittler,  and  of  resolving  me,  an 
entity  wholly  independent  of  that  toy-soldier,  into  my  com- 
ponent parts, — a  wholly  different  and  wholly  unpractical 
business, — for  this  purpose  nine  men  out  of  ten  (yes,  all  but 
one  in  a  million  of  us  practical  doctors,  lawyers,  farmers, 


232 

trades-people  and  mechanics)  will  be  exactly  and  unexcep- 
tionally  wrong.  The  activity  or  operation  of  me  lies  wholly 
inside  my  own  individul  cuticle,  and  consists  solely  in 
certain  changes  of  form  in  me, — in  certain  changes 
of  form  in  my  body  ;  in  certain  changes  of  form  in  my 
soul ;  in  the  combination  of  these  changes.  The  body's 
changes  of  form  are  visible  and  even  obvious,  and  they 
are  also  invisible  and  chemical.  The  thumb,  the  fingers, 
the  hand,  the  wrist,  the  arm,  all  change  their  form  visibly, 
by  changing  the  arrangement  of  the  bones.  The  muscles 
change  their  form  visibly  by  shortening  and  thickening 
their  figure.  This  change  visible  in  the  muscles  is,  how- 
ever, merely  the  effect  of  invisible  chemical  changes  in  the 
inner  form  or  constitution  of  their  substance.  And  this 
change  in  the  constitution  of  the  muscles  is  the  effect  of 
changes  in  what  (for  lack  of  better  name)  I  may  call  the 
"  electrical  form  "  of  the  body,  of  which  changes  the  nerves 
are  the  conduits.  And  the  changes  in  the  electrical  form  of 
the  body  proceed  from  changes  in  the  form  of  substances  of 
the  brain.  And  the  changes  of  brain-form  proceed  from 
changes  in  the  mind  or  mental  substance, — proceed  from 
changes  in  its  form.  But  all  these  changes  of  form,  from 
first  to  last,  from  bone  up  to  spirit,  are  changes  of  the  human 
form,  and  within  the  human  form,  and  are  in  no  case  changes 
within  or  unto  any  form  other  than  the  human.  The  compos- 
ing elements  of  the  force  or  activity  I  exert  are,  first,  sub- 
stance, and  second,  changing  form  But  both  the  substance 
and  the  form  are  personal ;  hence  the  force  proceeding  from 
them  is  personal ;  it  is  indeed  the  person ;  the  person  ;  but  it  is 
the  person  in  action ;  the  inner  person  and  the  outer  person 
combined  in  action.  The  spirit  of  the  departed,  since  active, 
doubtless  changes  its  form.  The  body  of  the  departed  is 
active  (surely  for  some  weeks  after  death,  at  least),  and 
changes  swiftly  and  visibly  its  form.  But  the  activity  of  soul 
and  body  combined  in  lif e,  is  an  activity  which  differs  from 
that  of  either  soul  or  body  singly.  This  living  activity  is  not 


233 

an  abstract  entity :  it  is  simply  the  acting  person,  the  man 
practical,  the  man  with  whom  we  daily  have  to  deal ;  his  real, 
effective,  total  self. 

And  now  if,  on  the  whole,  it  should  seem  to  the  reader  that 
what  we  call  human  activity  is  not  a  mere  principle,  not  an 
imperceptible  will-o'-the-wisp-like  Somewhat,  and  that  it  does 
not  exist  outside  of  man,  or  hover  about  the  objects  of  his  ac- 
tivity, but  does  in  fact  lie  wholly  within  him,  and  is  of  the 
man,  and  is  the  man  himself,  as  long  as  the  man  is  active ; 
not  being  that  mere  part  of  him  which  is  called  the  soul,  and 
not  being  that  mere  part  of  him  which  is  called  the  body,  but 
being  indeed  these  two  parts  fused  into  one  composite  active 
being ;  I  say,  if  the  thing  should  so  seem  to  the  reader,  I  ask 
him  to  note  with  a  figure  3  in  the  margin  of  the  page  this 
third  person,  and  I  ask  him  to  recognize  that  person  hence- 
forth as  a  person — as  a  "person*'  in  the  plain  and  ordinary 
sense  of  the  word — as  the  very  person  with  whom  in  this 
world  one  comes  in  contact,  the  person  of  whom  one  buys  or 
to  whom  one  sells,  who  employs  one  or  who  is  employed  by 
one ;  who  labors  in  profession,  in  trade,  or  in  handiwork ;  in 
short,  the  human  being  actual  and  practical.  If  the  reader 
is  satisfied  that  this  person  is  a  procession  from  the  mental 
person  and  from  the  bodily  person,  and  is  not  the  mental 
person  and  is  not  the  bodily  person,  but  is  a  third  person 
made  up  of  those  two  persons,  I  pray  him  to  write  quickly 
that  numeral  on  the  margin  ;  else  the  thing  may  flit  from 
his  mind  and  to-morrow  be  gainsaid  by  him. 

Like  the  human  trinity,  thus  far,  is  the  Trinity  Divine ;  in 
Persons  Three,  God  One.  The  Soul,  or  inner  invisible  Person, 
is  the  Father  whom  no  man  hath  seen  at  any  time  and  whom 
no  man  can  see.  The  Body,  or  Incarnation,  is  the  Son  who 
declares  and  reveals  the  Father,  even  as  man's  body  declares 
and  reveals  the  soul.  The  forth-flowing  energy  of  Soul  and 
Body  combined  is  the  Holy  Ghost,  which  proceeds  from  the 
Father  and  the  Son.  Just  as  we  say  that  the  soul  dwells  in 
the  body,  the  Lord  says  that  the  Father  dwells  in  Him.  Just 


234 

as  we  say  that  the  words  and  works  of  the  body  are  done 
really  by  the  soul  and  not  by  the  body,  so  the  Lord  says  that 
the  words  He  speaks,  He  does  not  speak  of  Himself,  but  the 
Father  within  Him  does  the  works.  Just  as  we  see  and  know 
a  man's  soul  by  his  body,  and  through  his  body,  and  as  his 
body,  so  when  Philip  asks  the  Lord  to  show  to  the  disciples 
the  Father,  He  answers,  "  Have  I  been  so  long  time  with  you, 
and  yet  hast  thou  not  known  ME  ?  He  that  hath  seen  ME 
hath  seen  the  Father ;  how  sayest  thou  then,  SHOW  us  the 
Father  f '  Just  as  we  get  at  a  man's  soul  through  his  body, 
so  does  Paul  declare  that  men  now  have  access  by  a  new  and 
living  way,  through  the  veil,  that  is  to  say,  Christ's  flesh.  Just 
as  the  soul  is  manifest  in  the  body,  so  Jesus  is  God  mani- 
fest in  the  flesh.  Just  as  in  man's  living  body  we  possess — all 
in  one — his  soul,  his  body,  and  the  forth-flowing  personal 
energy  of  the  two  combined,  so  precisely  dwells  in  Jesus 
Christ  ALL  the  fullness  of  the  Godhead  bodily.  And  just  as  it 
behooves  us  to  think  of  man  and  to  address  man,  by  thinking 
of  his  body  and  by  addressing  ourselves  to  his  body,  so  it 
behooves  Christians  to  think  of  God  and  address  God  by 
thinking  of  Jesus  Christ  and  by  addressing  Jesus  Christ  in 
thought.  Those  who  do  not  thus  in  thought  address  the 
Deity,  approach  not  by  the  new  and  living  way  which  is  His 
flesh,  but  are  striving  to  climb  up  unto  the  HOLIEST  by  some 
other.  Such  climbing  can  never  reach.  For  only  the  visible 
human  form  is  inmostly  lovable  or  inmostly  thinkable.  And 
only  that  which  is  inmostly  lovable  and  thinkable  is  in- 
mostly reproducible  in  men's  lives. 

The  key  to  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  is  the  doctrine  of 
the  procession  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  The  Church's  original 
belief  is  in  a  double  procession  ;  from  the  Father  and  from 
the  Son.  The  Greek  Church  modifies  this  into  a  single 
procession,  yet  in  one  sense  double  ;  from  the  Father  by  the 
Son.  With  Trinitarian  Protestants  the  vulgar  unworded 
belief  extirpates  both  the  creeds,  and  makes  the  Holy  Ghost 
proceed  neither  from  the  Son,  nor  through  the  Son,  but 


235 

direct  from  the  Father.  This  is  because  the  masses  do  not 
regard  Christ's  Body  as  absolutely  Divine,  and  therefore  not 
as  either  the  necessary  source  or  necessary  channel  of  all 
Divine  dynamic  influence  proceeding  from  the  Father  of 
Spirits.  But  precisely  as  that  source  and  as  that  channel 
must  His  Body  be  regarded,  before  the  Trinity  of  Persons 
and  their  Unity  in  the  Individual  called  God,  can  be  perceived. 
Men  forget  that  hour  by  hour  throughout  life  they^are  reject- 
ing the  physical ;  and  so  they  forget  that  day  by  day  He  re- 
jected the  physique  like  theirs  with  which  He  was  bom  into 
the  world.  Day  by  day  they  restore  from  the  outer  world  the 
place  of  the  rejected  elements  ;  and  they  remember  that 
He,  like  themselves,  restored  these  thence.  But  to  the 
outer  world  He  daily  rejected  more  than  from  that  world  He 
daily  restored  ;  and  the  difference  He  restored  from  His 
inner  world,  from  the  Father-Soul,  from  that  Source  of  sub- 
stance from  which  were  shaped  forth  all  the  worlds  and  all 
the  stuffs  within  the  worlds ;  and  from  within  He  put  firm 
flesh  on  Him  with  eating  the  meat  which  was  made  of 
doing  the  Father's  will  and  finishing  His  work.  Death 
at  last  had  no  more  power  over  Him,  because  all 
along  it  had  exercised  the  utmost  power,  and  had 
slain  all  in  Him  that  was  able  to  die.  The  body  with  which 
He  rose  was  not  gathered  from  the  world  of  matter,  but 
was  from  the  world  of  Mind,  a  substance  actually  Divine, 
an  evolution  of  Jehovah's  substance  out  of  the  plane  of 
Spirit  into  the  bodily  plane.  The  Incarnation  was  a  process 
of  forty  weeks,  it  is  true,  but  not  of  forty  weeks  alone ;  it 
was  a  process  of  three  and  thirty  years.  Every  one 
can  see  that  no  other  process  deserves  the  name  of 
Incarnation,  and  that  no  other  sort  of  Incarnation  is  Divine. 
For  every  Divine  process  is  essentially  a  moral  process  ;  and 
the  mere  placing  of  Deity  locally  within  a  frame  of  clay  is 
no  moral  process  at  all.  Incarnation  is  the  outworking  of 
Infinite  Love  and  Infinite  Wisdom  into  Infinite  Activity. 
Sons  of  God  are  all  in  whom  there  is  this  outworking. 


236 

though  finite.  The  Son  of  God,  the  Man  who,  after  His 
resurrection,  was  seen  by  His  disciples,  is  infinitely  that 
Incarnation. 


THEEE  PERSONS :  ONE  GOD. 

With  that  large  class  of  men  who  encounter  difficulty  in 
this  fundamental  doctrine  of  the  Church,  the  difficulty  for 
the  most  part  lies  in  this,  that  their  idea  of  the  nature  of 
these  Persons  is  an  idea  which  militates  against  the  truth 
that  God  is  One,  One  only.  But  as  soon  as  men  shall  catch 
the  true  force  of  the  word  "  person,"  which  embraces  both  its 
original  predominating  meaning  of  "  character  "  or  "  func- 
tion," and  also  the  resulting  meaning  of  "voluntary,  intelli- 
gent, determining  entity,  as  distinguished  from  animals  and 
things  and  from  abstract  qualities,"  every  obstruction  to  the 
perception  that  the  Three  Divine  Persons  are  in  very  truth 
One  sole  Being,  to  be  grasped  and  conceived  as  One,  entirely 
disappears. 

"  Personal  power,"  says  a  recent  Pastoral  Letter  of  an 
Episcopal  Bishop,  "  lies  in  the  realm  of  spiritual  things,  as 
in  institutions  and  reformations  on  the  earth.  Not  in  any 
generalities,  reactions  from  a  virtual  tri-theism,  any  more  than 
by  ancient  heresies  and  half-heresies,  can  the  truth  of  the 
tri-unity  of  God  be  preached,  but  only  by  the  clear  affirma- 
tions in  the  old  symbols,  setting  forth,  before  both  the  mind 
and  the  heart  of  man,  persons  to  be  loved  and  adored — the 
Father,  the  Son  and  the  Holy  Ghost." 

Here  is  struck  the  key  note  of  Christian  theology.  None 
ol  the  Divine  Three  is  a  mere  quality  or  characteristic, 
but  each  is  a  Person,  a  loveable  Person.  None  is 
a  shapeless  mass  of  Divinity,  but  each  is  a  think- 


237 

able  Person.  None  is  an  abstract  Law,  but  each  is  a 
directing  and  governing  Person.  Qualities  and  character- 
istics belong  to  each.  The  distinguishing  characteristic  of 
the  Father  is  His  paternal  Goodness  or  Love  which  devises 
the  way  for  His  children's  happiness.  The  distinguishing 
characteristic  of  the  Son  is  His  redeeming  Wisdom  or  Truth> 
than  which  there  is  no  other  way  to  Godliness.  The  dis- 
tinguishing characteristic  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  in  the  just 
language  of  the  Pastoral,  is  "  the  perpetual  energy  of  the 
Divine  Life  forthgoing  into  all  the  generations  and  peoples 
of  mankind."  And  these  three,  the  Divine  Goodness  or 
Love,  the  Divine  Truth  or  Wisdom  or  Logos,  and  the  Divine 
Energy  proceeding  from  that  Love  and  that  Wisdom,  are 
each  and  all  personal.  The  love  of  no  impersonal  God  can 
enter  into  man,  since  man  can  love  only  as  a  person.  The 
Truth  of  no  impersonal  God  can  enter  into  him,  since  he 
can  think  only  as  a  person.  The  Energy  and  Activity  of  no 
impersonal  God  can  enter  into  him,  since  only  as  a  person 
can  he  act.  For  the  very  purpose  that  He  and  every  one  of 
His  trinal  constituent  hypostases  or  elements  might  be  loved, 
known  and  obeyed,  each  as  a  person,  did  He  become  incar- 
nate. For  in  Incarnation,  His  personality  could  not  be  for- 
gotten. That  these  three  Persons  still  are  one  being,  and 
ought  to  be  thought  and  imagined  and  pictured  in  the  mind 
as  One,  should,  even  in  the  absence  of  doctrine,  be  inferred 
from  this,  viz.:  that  in  man  himself,  the  image  of  God,  these 
three  make  one.  Who  is  there  that  does  not  see  that  in 
every  man  the  Love  or  Wish,  the  Intellect  or  Understanding 
and  the  life  of  Energy  and  Action  proceeding  from  those  two, 
make  not  three  but  one,  making  a  spiritual  unity  ?  And  who 
is  there  that  does  not  know  and  acknowledge  that,  as  to 
each  of  these,  man  is  not  a  blind  drift,  not  a  vague  and  life- 
less form,  not  a  dead  force,  but  a  very  person? 

That  the  Person  of  the  Father  lies  within  the  Person  of 
the  Son,  the  Lord  teaches  where,  to  the  disciple  asking  that 
the  Father  might  be  shown  to  them,  He  answers,  "  Have  I 


238 

been  so  long  a  time  with  you  and  yet  hast  thou  not  known  Me, 
Philip  ?  He  that  hath  seen  Me,  hath  seen  the  Father ;  how 
sayest  thou  then  SHOW  us  the  Father  ?  Believest  thou  not 
that  I  am  in  the  Father  and  the  Father  in  me  1  The  words 
that  I  speak  unto  you  I  speak  not  of  myself,  but  the  Father 
that  dwelleth  in  me,  he  doeth  the  works."  That  the  Person 
of  the  Father  lies  within  the  Person  of  the  Son,  Paul  also 
teaches  where  he  says  that  God  was  in  Christ,  reconciling 
the  world  unto  Himself.  And  this,  either  in  general  or 
in  specific  terms,  is  the  doctrine  of  all  the  Gospels  and  all 
the  Epistles.  If  any  one  asserts  that  the  soul,  by  itself 
and  without  the  body,  is  not  a  person,  he  must  look  upon 
each  departed  friend  as  no  longer  a  person  but  a  thing ;  and 
by  him  must  Moses  and  Elijah,  speaking  with  the  Lord  on 
the  mountain  of  transfiguration,  be  looked  upon,  not  as  indi- 
viduals, but  as  mechanisms.  It  is  true  that  man's  body, 
when  separated  from  his  soul,  is  not  a  person ;  and  the  rea- 
son is  that  then  it  is  dead ;  for  Wish  and  Intelligence,  and 
not  solely  shape  of  substance,  constitute  a  person.  But  other 
than  such  a  body  was  the  Lord's  Divine  Body.  As  the 
Father  had  life  in  himself,  so  had  He  given  to  the  Son  to 
have  life  in  Himself ;  and  because  this  body  was  in  itself 
alive,  death  had  no  power  over  it,  and  that  very  body  rose 
from  the  grave  with  flesh  and  bone  more  solid  than  has  any 
spirit.  Such  a  Divine  Body  is  a  Person ;  it  is  the  outward 
person,  as  the  Father  is  the  inward  Person.  And  if  man's 
body  were  a  glorious  body  like  the  Lord's,  then  might  man's 
daily  action  thence  proceeding  be  also  rightly  called  a  person, 
even  as  the  Holy  Ghost  is  called  Person ;  but  because  this  is 
not  true,  we  call  his  life  of  effort  only  "  personal,"  and  do  not 
call  it  a  person  ;  although  we  call  his  body  his  person,  and 
although  we  know  that  the  realest  person  in  him  is  his 
soul.  Not  only  in  this  world,  but  also  in  the  other  does 
every  man  exist  in  three  persons.  For  if  in  that  world 
which  is  spiritual,  his  body  is  spiritual,  as  Paul  discloses,  it 
yet  is  truly  a  body.  That  these  three  persons  are  not  to  be 


239 

confounded,  not  only  the  Athanasian  Creed,  but  also  reason 
teaches.  Often  by  the  outward  person  we  are  deceived  as 
to  the  character  of  the  inward  person,  and  when  we  discover 
that  we  have  been  deceived,  we  say  that  the  person  is  quite  a 
different  person  from  what  we  had  thought.  With  men  who 
are  true  and  loyal,  these  two  persons  make  one  man ;  with 
hypocrites  they  make  two  men,  and  the  outer  man  is  a  sham. 
Often  the  best  and  most  useful  men  are  known  to  us 
only  in  the  third  person,  that  is,  by  their  works,  whether  in 
writing  or  in  action.  Their  souls  we  cannot  see;  their 
bodies  we  have  not  seen ;  but  their  doings,  which  sound  in 
their  own  sweet  and  wise  personality,  and  which  each  one  of 
them  works  in  a  manner  characteristic  of  himself  and  per- 
sonal to  himself,  we  do  sometimes  see  world- wide.  And  so 
it  is  with  God,  the  prototype.  The  Father  no  man  hath 
seen,  or  can  see.  In  this  world,  by  most  men  certainly,  the 
Son  is  not  to  be  perceived.  The  Holy  Ghost,  however,  can 
be  known  by  all  that  will.  The  Lord  did  not  leave  His  dis- 
ciples comfortless,  but  He  has  come  to  them.  He  went 
away,  but  He  has  sent  them  the  Comforter  who  teaches  them 
all  things  and  brings  all  things  to  their  remembrance.  A 
little  while  and  they  should  not  see  the  Lord ;  but  again  a 
little  while  and  they  should  see  Ham  ;  to  them,  to  the  world 
by  no  means,  would  He  manifest  Himself.  And  this  is  the 
manner,  says  He,  in  which  He  shall  manifest  Himself,  to 
wit: — If  a  man  love  the  Lord  he  will  keep  the  Lord's 
words  and  the  Father  will  love  him,  and  They  twain 
who  yet  are  One,  will  come  unto  him  and  make  their 
abode  with  him.  Hereby,  to  wit,  in  the  life  of  His  kept 
words,  will  He  manifest  Himself  unto  His  disciples  and  not 
unto  the  world.  This  kind  of  God's  presence  is  the  presence 
of  the  Holy  Spirit,  a  very  Paraclete,  a  helper-at-call,  a  Com- 
forter or  Strengthener ;  called  Strengthener  or  Comforter 
(Latin  fortis,  forceful)  because  Force  is  the  Third  ;  whereas 
Will  is  the  First,  and  Wisdom  is  the  Middle  and  Mediate  and 
Mediator.  The  sense  or  wit  whereby  this  Third  Person 


240 

is  sensed  or  perceived  lies  in  the  principle  of  Obedience, 
in  the  keeping  of  His  words.  Who  is  there  that 
cannot  see  that  in  as  far  as  the  Divine  Wisdom  or  Logos  is 
carried,  not  merely  into  the  understanding,  but  into  the 
heart  and  life,  both  the  Divine  Wisdom  and  also  the  Divine 
Fatherly  Love  are  received,  and  that  these  two  then  dwell 
with  a  man  ?  Love  impelling  his  acts,  and  Wisdom  guiding 
his  acts ;  the  effective  personal  Energy  of  the  Divine  thus 
bringing  forth  fruit  in  his  daily  life.  This  Third  in  the 
Godhead  the  world  does  not  receive,  because  it  sees  him  not, 
neither  knows  him ;  but  true  disciples  know  him,  for  he 
dwells  with  them  and  shall  bfc  in  them.  They,  however,  who 
will  not  believe  that  these  Three  are  absolutely  One  Lord, 
One  God,  and  who  in  thought  picture  to  themselves  three 
individuals,  although  with  the  mouth  they  say  "  one  Lord," 
are  unable  to  understand  how  the  person  of  the  Holy  Ghost 
"proceeds"  from  the  persons  of  the  Father  and  the  Son. 
Denying  in  heart  and  thought  the  Unity,  though  confessing 
it  with  the  mouth,  they  say  within  themselves,  How  can  one 
person  "  proceed  "  steadily  from  another,  or  how  can  one 
person  be  "  breathed  forth  "  from  another,  as  when  the  Lord 
breathed  on  His  Disciples,  saying  "  Eeceive  ye  the  Holy 
Ghost "?  And,  if  they  are  thoughtful  men,  they  say  to 
themselves,  How  can  a  person  exist  who  is  so  constituted 
that  he  never  can  "  speak  of  himself/'  but  only  as  directed 
by  others  1 

With  men  like  these  the  doctrine  of  the  Incarnation  is 
doctrine  thrown  away  and  useless.  Denying  in  thought, 
though  in  mouth  confessing,  the  Unity,  they  cannot  see 
that  the  inner  invisible  person  of  the  Father  is  as  Soul  to 
the  outward  visible  person  of  the  Son  ;  nor  see  that  the 
outward  visible  person  is  as  body  and  manifestation  and 
incarnation  for  that  soul ;  nor  see  that  the  perpetual  energy 
of  the  Divine  Life  going  forth  from  that  Soul's  Divine 
Person  and  that  Body's  Divine  Person,  composes  the 
personal  executive  energy  in  the  Godhead,  which  proceeds 


241 

from  God  just  as  every  man's  personal  life  of  daily  perform- 
ance proceeds  from  his  invisible  soul  and  his  visible  body. 
Thus  they  remain  virtually  in  ignorance  of  that  God  from 
whom,  (1)  "  all  holy  desires,  (2)  all  good  counsels,  and  (3) 
all  just  works  do  proceed."  The  holy  desires  flow  from  the 
Father's  Divine  Love.  The  good  counsels  flow  from  the  Son's 
Divine  Logos  or  Wisdom.  The  just  works  flow  from  the 
Holy  Spirit's  presence  in  man's  spirit.  But  these  three  re- 
main to  them  a  mystery;  nor  can  they  perceive  that  precisely 
as  Desire  works  by  good  Counsels  and  in  good  Counsels,  so 
does  the  Father  work  by  and  in  the  Son ;  and  that  precisely 
as  no  just  work  can  be  produced  except  from  Desire  and  with 
Counsel,  so  only  from  the  Father  and  the  Son  can  the  Holy 
Ghost  proceed.  On  the  other  hand,  those  picture  God 
rightly  who  picture  Him  in  their  minds  precisely  as  He  has 
manifested  Himself  to  the  eye,  viz.,  in  the  Flesh.  Looking 
on  the  person  of  the  Son  visible,  they  see  in  it  the  person  of 
the  indwelling  Father  invisible,  just  as  a  man  sees  another's 
inner  soul  written  in  his  outward  mien  and  countenance  ; 
and  they  see  in  the  visible  person  of  the  Son  the  Person  of 
His  Holy  Spirit,  just  as  a  man  can  see  another's  personal 
activity  when  he  regards  the  body  of  another  while  it  is  in 
action.  There  is,  moreover,  a  higher  sense  of  sight  than 
belongs  to  the  eye  of  the  body  or  to  the  eye  of  the  mind. 
It  is  the  eyesight  of  the  Heart.  It  is  gained  through  the 
bodily  sight  and  through  the  mind's  sight ;  it  exists  along 
with  the  sight  of  those  two,  and  within  the  sight  of  those 
two.  Supremely  witless  are  they  who  think  to  come  by  this 
highest  wit  through  mutilation  of  the  wits  below.  This 
highest  wit  of  Sight,  this  Heart-wit,  is  like  the  sight  where- 
with the  wise  old  Maker  gazed  upon  His  work  and  "  saw  " 
that  the  same  was  good;  i.  e.,  He  "  saw  "  to  it  that  it  should 
be  good  work;  to  that  end  did  He  "look  out  "  from  His 
glowing  eyes ;  'twas  thus  He  did  "  regard  "  that  work.  This 
sort  of  sight  is  practical  sight ;  this  is  sight  inmost.  Does 
the  prisoner  "  see "  good  days  who  through  prison  bars 


242 

daily  sees  happy  children  at  play  ?  Is  thorough  "  sight "  a 
thing  of  the  surface  of  the  retina,  or  is  it  when  the  whole 
body  is  full  of  light — full  of  all-pervasive  ethereal  tremor  1 
Thorough  sight  is  experience ;  experience  to  the  inmost 
fibre ;  it  is  more  than  a  gawky  stare ;  it  is  sight  such  as  that 
with  which  the  pure  in  heart  see  God.  But  it  is  not  good 
to  talk  of  this  kind  of  sight ;  the  witless  catch  words  only, 
and  with  their  accursed  Idealism  seek  to  destroy  the  two 
lower  wits  within  which  this  higher  wit  must  ever  be  en- 
cased and  held  in  soundness. 

The  Persons  are  Three,  the  God  is  One  ;  Jesus  Christ  is 
that  God ;  and  in  Him  dwells  all  the  fullness  of  the  Godhead 
bodily.  The  man  who  thinks  of  the  Father  except  as 
within  the  Son,  is  like  a  man  who  strives  to  think  of  a  living 
friend's  soul  as  outside  of  his  body.  Such  a  man  thinks  of 
that  which  he  has  not  seen,  instead  of  that  which  he  has 
seen  and  which  shows  forth  and  manifests  that  which  cannot 
otherwise  be  seen.  What  is  worse,  when  a  man  thinks  of 
that  which  he  has  not  seen  and  cannot  see,  he  thinks  of  what 
he  has  never  loved  and  cannot  love.  Men  who  thus  picture 
God  as  not  in  the  Flesh,  brush  past  the  Divine  Humanity, 
which  is  the  only  Door  and  the  only  Way  of  approach  to  the 
essential  Divinity.  They  strive  to  come  to  the  Father,  not 
by  the  Son,  but  some  other  way  of  climbing  up  into  the 
fold.  The  very  office  of  the  Son,  which  is  Manifestation 
and  Mediation  and  Intercommunication,  they  destroy. 
Not  even  in  imagination  can  any  man  come  to  the 
Father  but  by  the  Son.  The  reason  is  that  no  man  has 
;seen  God  at  any  time.  The  only  begotten  Son  who  is  in  the 
bosom  of  the  Father  has  declared  the  Father.  God  was  the 
Word,  and  the  Word  was  made  Flesh.  Whosoever  denies 
the  Son,  the  same  has  not  the  Father  ;  but  he  that  acknowl- 
edges the  Son  has  the  Father  also.  This  is  the  true  God 
and  eternal  life.  Little  children  keep  yourselves  from  idols. 
Every  mental  picture  of  God,  except  as  the  picture  of  Him 
who  is  declared  to  be  the  express  image  of  the  Father's 
Person,  is  an  idol. 


243 

HOW    TO     CEASE    THINKING     MATEEIALLY    OF 

GOD. 

A  recent  editorial  on  "  Divine  Personality  "  calls  attention 
to  certain  points  which  seldom  get  it.  Worthy  of  deepest 
study  is  one  of  its  quotations.  I  may  be  permitted  to  trans- 
late it  afresh.  The  italicising  will  be  mine. 

Every  one  who  thinks  about  God  from  His  Person  alone  and  not 
from  His  inner  being,  thinks  materially  ;  materially,  as  well,  thinks 
he  who,  in  thinking  about  his  neighbors,  thinks  from  their  shapes 
alone  and  not  from  what  kind  of  folk  they  are  *  *  *  About  God» 
my  pupils,  think  from  His  inner  being;  and,  from  that,  think 
about  His  Person  ;  do  not  think  from  His  Person  and,  from  that, 
about  His  inner  being.  For,  from  the  person,  to  think  about  the 
inner  being,  is  to  think'  materially  even  about  the  inner  being;  but, 
from  the  inner  being,  to  think  about  the  person,  is  to  think  spiritu- 
ally even  about  the  person.  (Apoc.  Rev.  n.  611.) 

The  propositions  in  this  quotation  reach  farther  than  at 
first  sight  they  seem  to  reach.  Let  me  restate  a  few  of  them. 

(1)  It  is  not  said  that  to   think   about  God's  person   is  to 
think  materially  of  God. 

(2)  It  is  said  that  to  think  materially  of  Him,  is  to  think 
of  Him  from  person  alone. 

(3)  We  are  to  think  -from   inner  being,  or  (as  the  transla- 
tions make  it)  "  essence,"  and  not  about  inner   being  or  es- 
sence.    We  are  to  think  about  person,  and  not  from  person. 
'Tis  as  needful  to  think  about  person  as  to  think  from  essence ; 
and  as  harmful  to  think  about  essence,  except  as  person,  as  it 
is  to  think  from  person  without   thinking  of   essence.     To 
think  about   any  one  from  essence,  i.  e.,  to   think  of  him 
from  our  idea  of  his  love   and  wisdom,  is  to   feel  that  he  is 
loving  and  wise,  and  to  be  conscious  of  the  love  and  wisdom 
in  him.  Then,  from  the  feeling,  this  consciousness  passes  out 
into  the  intellect,  and  becomes  there  the  thought  of  a  person 
good  and  wise.     This  is   right  thinking  ;  this  is  what  Swe- 
denborg  here  advises.     To  think  from  person  is  to  let  one's 


244 

judgment  of  another's  character  or  essence  be  governed  by 
one's  affection  for  his  visible  person  and  outward  self,  or  by- 
one's  repulsion  from  it,  as  the  case  may  be ;  and  this  is  wrong 
thinking  ;  and  against  this  does  the  teacher,  in  the  passage 
I  have  cited,  warn  his  pupils. 

(4)  To  think  of  God  even  from  person  alone,  is  not  to  think 
of  Him  "  materially,"  unless  by  this  is  really  meant  that,  in- 
nerly,  He  is  not  then  thought  of  from  essence  also.  This  pro- 
viso ought  always  to  be  remembered ;  because  in  every  true 
idea  of  God  the  idea  of  "  person"  must  be  present;  and  be- 
cause that  idea  ought,  of  right,  to  be  all-prominent ;  and  be- 
cause, when  it  is  all  prominent,  it  may  seem  to  be  occupying 
the  whole  ground  of  the   mind,  whereas  in  truth   it  may  be 
occupying  only  that  portion   which  is  nearest   to   the  con- 
sciousness. 

(5)  This  passage  implies  that  in  thinking  of  God  from  per- 
son alone,  one  runs  no  greater  risk  of  thinking  "  materially," 
than  he  runs  in  thinking  of  his  neighbors  from  their  visible 
forms  alone.     No  greater  risk,  I  say ;  and  if  well  you  weigh 
it,  a  risk  far  less. 

Now,  as  to  one's  neighbors,  the  risk  or  danger  lies  not  in 
any  error  of  abstract  thought,  but  in  an  error  of  the  will  and 
of  the  conduct.  No  man  runs  upon  such  danger  but  the 
man  who  does  not  shun  evils  as  sins :  him,  indeed,  the 
danger  has  already  overtaken  and  head-first  swallowed 
up.  Invariably  this  man  works  for  his  friends,  his 
relatives,  his  helpers;  even  while  they  are  engaged 
in  dishonest  deeds  he  favors  them;  he  has  no  look-out 
for  goodness  in  them  or  for  badness  in  them ;  he  regards  alto- 
gether their  outer  and  not  their  inner  "  persons."  This  is 
what  is  meant  by  "  thinking  of  them  from  their  sfiapes  or 
persons"  and  not  "from  quality,  or  from  what  they  are."  Do 
not  believe  you  can  cure  such  a  man  by  teaching  him  just 
ideas  about  "  essence  "  and  "  form,"  or  even  by  showing  him 
how  to  hit  the  true  mean  of  thought  which  will  hold  to  the 
"  essence  "  and  not  forsake  the  "  form."  There  is  just  one 


245 

for  him  to  cease  to  think  "  materially  "  of  his  neighbors, 
and  this  it  is : — Let  him  steadfastly  set  his  face  against  them 
whenever  they  are  doing  wrong,  even  though  they  are  dear 
to  him,  if  it  be  his  duty  then  to  set  his  face  against  them  ; 
and  let  him  favor  them  when  they  are  in  the  right,  even 
though  they  personally  are  repulsive  to  him,  if  it  be  his 
duty  or  his  pleasure  then  to  favor  them.  For  example :  If 
he  is  President  of  the  United  States,  and  if  his  Secretary  of 
War  (beloved  by  him)  steals  public  money,  or  lets  it  be 
stolen  from  his  charge  by  those  whom  he  in  turn  loves ; 
this  President,  if  he  thinks  "  materially "  of  the  Secre- 
tary, or  "thinks  of  him  from  person  alone,"  and  not 
"  from  quality,"  will  not  bring  the  officer  to  justice, 
but  will  accept  a  resignation  before  the  officer  can 
be  impeached  and  punished ;  and  will  accept  it  in  order  that 
impeachment  and  punishment  may  be  avoided ;  and  he  will 
think  it  good  and  praiseworthy  to  do  this ;  and,  as  his  reason, 
he  will  say  that  a  man  ought  to  be  faithful  to  his  friends. 
Thus  such  a  President  will  find  less  a  friend  hi  his  country, 
in  his  duty,  in  truth,  and  in  righteousness,  than  he  will  find 
in  a  mere  animated  form  which  is  dear  to  him.  Whereas,  if 
this  President  wills  to  think  of  the  Secretary  according  to 
the  Secretary's  quality,  he  quickly  will  put  the  Secretary 
under  suspension  ;  and  whatever  the  executive  arm  may  do 
in  its  proper  function  he  will  swiftly  do,  in  order  to  get  that 
officer  impeached  and  punished. 

The  way,  then,  to  cease  to  think  "materially"  of  God, 
as  of  all  other  beings,  does  not  lie  in  ceasing  to  think  of 
Him  as  a  Person.  The  way  is  this : — Cease  to  wish,  cease  to 
plan,  cease  to  do,  that  which  is  evil ;  continue  all  the  while  to 
think  of  God  as  a  Person.  For  every  man's  god,  at  the  in- 
most, is  that  which  he  obeys.  If  he  obeys  truth  and  good- 
ness, these — or  rather  this — is  his  God,  and  this  he  wor- 
ships ;  as  long  as  he  does  this  he  really,  even  if  uncon- 
sciously to  himself,  thinks  of  God  from  this,  or  from  these, 
which  are  God's  Essence ;  and  he  ought  to  think  of  God 


246 

as  a  Person,  and  never  otherwise  than  as  a  Person.  For 
truth  and  goodness  are  nothing  unless  human,  and  the 
human  is  nothing  unless  a  person.  Therefore  true  goodness 
is  itself  nothing  unless  a  person.  It  is  human  without,  and 
within  it  is  humane.  These  two,  character  and  person,  are 
not  foes,  but  friends  like  soul  and  body.  To  sunder  them 
in  thought  is  to  outlaw  one's  own  soul ;  'tis  sheer  Christ-kill- 
ing ;  a  very  murder  of  religion.  The  first  precept  of  the 
Christian  faith  is,  Shun  evil  sins  against  God.  The  second 
precept  is :  Think  of  God  as  a  Person.  Those  two  make  up 
the  main  teaching  of  the  Apostles,  which  was  (1)  Repentance 
toward  God,  and  (2)  Belief  in  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  Just 
those  two,  and  naught  besides,  are  meant  by  the  words 
repentance  and  belief.  "  God  "  means  the  Divine  Essence ; 
and  "  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ "  means  His  visible  Person.  For 
those  two  ends,  namely,  that  men's  wills  might  repent,  and 
that  their  intellects  might  conceive  Him  as  a  Person,  God 
was  manifested  in  the  flesh,  and  did  preach  and  has  been 
preached.  For  all  His  work  in  overcoming  the  evil  spirit 
world  could  have  been  done  on  earth  quite  unproclaimed, 
and  wholly  without  His  becoming  known  on  earth.  They 
who  take  away  from  God  the  form  of  a  Person,  do  not  come 
by  the  door  into  the  fold,  but  they  strive  to  climb  up  some 
other  way.  The  reason  they  are  called  "  thieves  "  and  "  rob- 
bers "  is  that  all  which  man  has,  he  has  from  the  Being 
called  God,  and  this  "  God  "  is  a  Person.  If,  then,  man  in 
heart  denies  God  to  be  a  Person,  he  in  heart  denies  that 
God  is ;  because  there  is  then  with  that  man  no  identifica- 
tion of  God  as  of  One  apart  from  Nature  or  as  apart  from 
the  man's  own  consciousness;  such  a  man  has  destroyed 
God's  outline,  and  there  is  now  nothing  to  mark  off  in  his 
imagination  what  belongs  to  God  from  what  belongs  not  to 
God ;  thereby  the  man  silently  and  unconsciously  denies  that 
what  he  has  comes  from  Another ;  thus  denies  that  it  comes 
from  God ;  this  is  to  rob  and  steal  from  God ;  this  is  to  "  kill 
the  heir."  But  those  who  come  in  by  the  door,  that  is,  those 


247 

who,  through  the  Form,  reach  the  Essence,  and  who  receive 
the  Essence  through  and  in  the  Form,  do  not  steal  and  rob, 
and  yet  they  receive — or,  as  it  is  said,  they  "find  pasture?' 
Essence  is  the  Good.  Form  is  the  person.  Pasture  is  the 
feeding  of  the  Heart.  It  is  not  the  Gush  of  which  we  find 
abundance.  It  is  the  bread  of  God  of  which  every  man 
eats  who  looks  to  the  Man-God,  and  works  sincerely,  skil- 
fully and  effectively  in  his  daily  business  and  function  in 
society. 

These  things  come  up  steadily  in  the  Word,  when  the 
Word  is  understood.  All  this  is  meant  when  of  "  the  pure 
in  heart"  it  is  said  "they  shall  see  God."  To  be  pure  in 
heart  is  to  have  repented  of  evils  and  to  have  made  them  no 
longer  delightful ;  such  men,  and  only  such,  can  think  about 
God  or  man  from  that  real  love  and  real  wisdom  which  are 
God's  Essence.  From  this  their  character,  it  comes  that 
they  think  of  God  as  a  Person;  and  this  is  meant  by 
"  seeing  Him  "  ;  and  it  is  their  delight  so  to  think  of  God; 
therefore  it  is  said  that  they  are  "  blessed."  Observe  the 
chain  of  causation;  (1)  Pureness  of  heart;  (2)  Having 
God  in  thought  as  a  Person;  (3)  The  reflex  blessedness 
proceeding  from  such  presence  of  God  in  the  thought, 
begotten  of  such  presence  of  Him  in  the  heart.  In 
no  other  way  than  this  can  God  be  seen  in  heaven.  The 
thought  must  be  about  a  Person,  and  the  thought  must 
spring  from  goodness  and  truth  in  the  thinker.  The  same 
things  are  meant  where  it  is  said  that  "  His  servants  shall 
serve  Him,  and  they  shall  see  His  face,  and  his  name  shall 
be  in  their  foreheads,"  "  Name  "  means  "  quality,"  wher- 
ever the  name  is  a  fitting  name.  God's  "  name  "  is  God's 
quality ;  that  is  to  say,  His  truth  and  goodness.  The  "  fore- 
head "  means  the  interiors,  because  the  interiors  are  in- 
scribed upon  it,  both  momentarily  and  at  last  with  fixedness. 
To  write  God's  name  there,  is  to  make  the  interiors  God- 
like. Men  with  such  interiors  see  God  in  thought  as  a  Per- 
son ;  this  last  is  meant  by  "  seeing  His  face." 


Xv3»«^>Nv 
f     «fTHt      \ 

lUNIVERSITYl 


248 

For  myself,  I  dislike  the  word  "  person."  By  turns,  it 
means  anything,  everything,  nothing.  In  Webster's  dic- 
tionary I  find  nine  distinct  senses  of  it.  Through  this  word 
the  sins  of  our  fathers,  who  were  arrant  literary  snobs,  are 
visited  upon  us  their  children.  The  word  is  not  English, 
and  its  consonants  and  vowels  do  not  come  forth  from  a 
Saxon  soul.  It  was  stolen  from  the  French  and  Latin,  and, 
like  many  un-English  words,  was  stolen  because  those  who 
stole  it  supposed  that  a  word  which  they  understood  less 
thoroughly  than  the  English  word,  must  have  in  it  a  reserve 
of  wisdom  over  and  above  what  the  English  word  had.  There 
is  greater  strength  in  the  little  finger  of  the  English  "  Man  " 
than  in  the  loins  of  the  broken-down  Latin  "  person."  We 
had  best  say,  :e  God  is  a  Man."  What  a  man  is,  a  man 
knows — at  least  if  he  is,  or  has  seen,  a  robust  and  healthy 
man.  But  what  a  "  person  "  is,  nobody  knows — at  least  not 
I,  unless  it  means  a  "man;"  but  if  so,  why  not  say 
" Man "  at  once ?  Swedenborg  stuck  by  " Homo"  Man, 
whenever  he  was  describing  God ;  and  he  seldom  used  Per- 
sona, except  when  he  dealt  with  the  systematic  theology 
which  he  abhorred. 

There  are  those  who  suppose  the  thought  of  God  as  a 
Man — or,  if  I  must  use  the  word,  as  a  Person — is  narrowing 
to  the  understanding  and  is  harbored  only  by  people  with 
small  prejudices.  They  are  wholly  mistaken.  The  failure 
to  carry  into  practice  God's  love  and  wisdom  is  what  makes 
narrowness  in  theology.  The  belief  that  His  love  and  wis- 
dom are  of  man-shape  does  not  make  such  narrowness.  The 
belief  in  God  as  a  man,  a  man  with  a  head  and  a  body,  with 
arms  and  legs,  with  hands  and  feet — this  belief  is  not  in- 
compatible with  a  breadth  of  view  which  few  or  none  of  the 
worshippers  of  the  Abstract  can  entertain,  or  even  conceive. 
This  belief  is  not  incompatible  with  a  breadth  of  rationality 
which  captures  alive,  and  tames,  and  sets  about  some  busi- 
ness, each  of  the  little,  diverse,  warring  systems  of  the 
Abstract-worshippers,  and  caging  all  of  them  like  a 


24:9 

veritable  Happy  Family,  turns  them  all  to  good, 
and  finds  no  fault  with  any  of  them.  A  breadth  which 
sees  all  religions  from  within,  and  reads  them  all  from 
above,  from  the  heaven  whence  all  things  are  given, 
and  which  beholds  heaven  in  all  of  them,  and  reads  by  a 
mystic  noonday  light  the  scrip  from  heaven  let  down  into  a 
darkened  world.  A  breadth  which  loves  immeasurably  the 
new-born  Science  which  is  hated  by  the  religionists ;  yet  loves 
all  the  creeds  of  the  religionists.  A  breadth  which  reaches 
from  within  outward,  and  which  from  within  beholds  the 
sun-lit  side  of  every  human  utterance,  and  finds  no  absolute 
untruth  in  all  the  world,  but  only  men  that  are  untrue.  A 
breadth  which  is  widest  in  this,  that  it  knows  itself  to  be 
narrow  and  petty,  and  knows  all  knowledge — even  this 
knowledge — to  be  petty,  and  knows  that  nothing  is  wide  but 
Conduct,  Conduct  chiefly  silent.  This  breadth,  in  a  measure, 
every  man  can  gain  who  shuns  evils  as  sins  and  looks  to 
God  as  a  Person — as  the  Incarnate  God.  No  other  one  can 
gain  that  breadth.  The  rest  can  imagine  they  have  it ;  and 
I  grant  the  imagining  will  serve  them  just  as  well,  for  their 
own  purposes.  Like  one  struck  dead  by  lightning,  they 
shall  never  know  the  difference. 

Out  of  thousands  (as  I  think)  of  Swedenborg's  sayings  to 
this  same  effect,  I  append  a  dozen ;  chiefly  from  the  "  Athana- 
sian  Creed."  I  ask  that  these  be  chewed  upon  ;  not  for  tooth- 
breaking,  but  for  the  everlasting  juice  within  them  : 

It  follows  that  the  Word  is  also  to  be  understood  according  to 
the  sense  of  the  letter,  when  it  says  that  God  has  a  face,  that  He  has 
eyes  and  ears,  and  that  He  has  hands  and  feet.  (21). 

The  idea  of  God  as  a  Man,  is  engrafted  from  heaven  in  every 
nation  throughout  the  whole  terrestrial  globe  ;  but,  what  I  lament, 
it  is  destroyed  in  Christendom.  (6.) 

The  thought  alone  concerning  God  as  Man  .  .  .  opens 
Heaven  ;  on  the  other  hand,  thought  concerning  God  not  as  Man, 
.  .  .  closes  Heaven.  (6.) 

It  is  also  by  permission  of  Divine  Providence  that  *  *  persons  "  are 
spoken  of  [in  the  Athanasian  Creed,]  for  a  'person  is  a  Man,  and  a 


250 

Divine  Person  is  God  who  is  Man.  This  is  revealed  at  this  day  for 
the  sake  of  the  New  Church  which  is  called  the  Holy  Jerusalem.  (16). 

No  one  is  conjoined  with  heaven  and  admitted  there  after  death, 
unless  in  the  idea  of  his  thought  he  sees  God  as  a  Man.  (16). 

For  God  is  perfect  Man  ;  in  face  and  body  like  to  Man  ;  there  being 
no  difference  as  to  form,  but  as  to  essence.  (27.) 

It  was  said  that  to  think  of  God  as  a  Man  is  implanted  in  every 
spirit ;  and  it  is  evident  .  .  .  that  this  is  effected  by  an  influx  of 
the  Lord  into  the  interior  of  the  spirit's  thoughts.  (20.) 

Every  one  in  the  spiritual  world  is  known  from  his  human  form, 
which  is  according  to  what  he  derives  from  the  Lord.  (22.) 

In  fine,  he  who  sees  God  as  a  Man,  sees  God,  because  he  sees  the 
Lord.  (22.) 

In  a  word,  all  the  angels  of  the  three  heavens  think  of  God  as  of 
a  Man,  nor  can  they  think  otherwise,  for  if  they  were  disposed  to  do 
so,  thought  would  cease,  and  they  would  fall  from  heaven.  (20.) 

"  Who  can  but  stare  at  seeing  that  the  mental  picture  of  the 
God-like  Manly  of  the  Lord  is  utterly  gone  to  ruin  in  the  Christian 
churches,  and  first  and  foremost  among  men  of  education  in  those 
churches  ;  and  that  what  of  it  stays  yet,  is  only  among  the  simple. 
For  the  simple  think  of  God  as  they  think  of  a  man,  and  not,  like 
the  educated,  as  of  a  ghost  without  man's  (forma)  shape.  The  men 
of  the  oldest  times — and  wiser  were  they  than  the  men  of  ours — 
had  no  other  mental  picture  of  God  than  of  a  Man  with  beaming 
rings  about  His  head ;  as  is  shown  by  the  writings  of  the  ancients, 
and  by  figures  in  paintings  or  in  sculptures.  And  all  men  of  the 
church,  from  Adam's  time  to  Abraham,  and  down  to  Moses  and 
the  prophets,  thought  of  God  as  they  thought  of  a  man  ;  saw  him 
too  in  the  (forma)  shape  of  a  man  ;  and  called  him  Jehovah.  .  .  . 
That  from  the  very  first  the  dwellers  on  this  earth  had  a  mental 
picture  of  the  Man-God,  or  of  God's  Manly,  is  shown  by  their  idols. 
.  .  .  The  reason  why  man  has  this  mental  picture  of  the  Divine, 
is  because  that  picture  is  from  an  inflow  out  of  heaven  ;  for  in 
heaven  not  a  soul  can  think  of  God  but  in  man's  (forma)  shape  ; 
thought  he  otherwise,  the  thought  of  God  would  perish  in  him,  and 
he  himself  would  drop  from  heaven.  .  .  .  And  yet,  in  this 
world  to-day,  among  educated  people,  this  mental  picture  of  God, 
of  all  the  thoughts  of  God  the  headmost,  is  rooted  up  and  out,  as  it 
were  ;  so  that  if  one  do  but  say  that  God  is  a  Man,  they  cannot 
take  it  into  their  thought.  .  .  .  Yet  without  this  mental 
picture  of  the  Divine,  not  a  man,  be  he  whom  you  will,  can  pass 
into  heaven,  but  is  hurled  away  when  he  touches  the  very  begin- 


251 

ning  of  the  way  to  heaven.  So  these  are  tJie  things  which  first  and 
foremost  are  to  be  understood  by  the  words,  '  If  any  man  have  an  ear 
let  him  hear.7"  Apoc.  Exp.  n.  808. 

Let  it  well  be  known  that  Swedenborg's  word  "  forma  " 
can  by  no  means  be  interpreted  into  a  pantheistic  vagueness, 
or  made  to  mean  other  than  "  build,"  which  is  its  English 
etymologic  kinsman.  Look  at  passages  in  which  this  word 
forma  is  found,  and  judge  whether  it  can  mean  aught  but 
what  includes  a  human  outline. 

"  Hence  then  it  is,  that  in  every  spirit,  and  also  in  every  man, 
when  the  man  is  in  the  idea  of  his  spirit,  it  is  implanted  that  he 
think  of  God  as  a  Man.  From  this  implanting  it  came  that,  more 
than  did  their  after-comers,  the  most  ancient  men  worshipped  God 
as  seeable  under  the  build  (forma)  of  a  man.  That  also  they  saw 
God  as  a  man,  the  Word  is  witness,  ...  as  of  Moses,  that  he 
talked  with  Jehovah  face  to  face;  .  .  .  as  a  man,  too,  Jehovah 
was  seen  by  Hagar,  was  seen  by  Gideon,  was  seen  by  Joshua.  .  .  . 
That  the  Lord  it  was  that  was  seen  by  them,  Himself  teaches  .  .  . 
(John  viii.  56, 58 ;  xvii.  5,  24).  That  not  the  Father  but  the  Son  it 
was  that  was  seen,  is  because  God's  Inner  Being  (Divinum  Esse) 
which  is  the  Father,  cannot  be  seen  save  by  God's  Forth-bodying 
(Dimnum  Existere)  which  is  God's  Manhood  (Dimnum  Humanum). 
.  .  .  Since  the  Inner  Being  (Esse)  is  in  its  Forth-bodying  (Exis- 
tere),  like  as  soul  is  in  its  body,  therefore  he  who  sees  God's  Forth- 
bodying  or  the  Son,  sees  moreover  God's  Inner  Being,  or  the 
Father."  (Id.  20,  21 ;  Ap.  Ex.  1115,  1116,  continuatio). 

How  indeed  should  He  stand  forth  (existet)  out  from  the 
Invisible,  unless  in  the  mind  He  be  seen;  and  how  in  the 
mind  can  He  be  seen  save  in  some  shape  or  build  ?  Is  not 
man's  shape  the  shape  of  his  Maker,  and  is  not  this  a  God- 
like shape  in  the  eyes  of  those  who  know  somewhat  concern- 
ing it,  and  in  the  eyes  of  every  one  who  has  an  eye  for  the 
God-like?  Whoever  will  not  suffer  Him  so  to  body-forth 
(existere)  in  the  mind,  denies  thereby  His  IZxistere  or  Forth- 
bodying  ;  nay,  slays  in  his  mind  all  Existere  of  God,  and 


252 

seeks  to  climb  up  by  some  other  way  to  the  unseeable  I  AM 
the  JEsse  or  invisible  Father. 

"  To  those  who  are  in  a  life  of  love,"  says  Swedenborg,  "  He  gives 
to  think  of  God  in  the  (forma)  shape  of  a  man ;  and  God  in  the 
shape  of  a  man  is  the  Lord.  Thus  think  the  simple  in  the  Christian 
world  ;  thus  too  those  heathen  who  live  in  charity  according  to  their 
cult ;  and  both  these  and  those  are  struck  dumb  at  hearing  the 
educated  say  of  God  that  one  is  to  perceive  Him  as  not  in  some 
human  (forma)  shape ;  for  then  they  know  that  the  educated  see  no 
God  in  their  thought,  and  therefore  have  little  belief  that  there  is  a  God  ; 
for  the  faith  which  is  the  faith  of  charity  wills  to  comprehend, 
somehow,  that  which  is  believed ;  for  faith  is  of  thought,  and  to 
think  the  incomprehensible  is  not  to  think,  but  only  to  be  aware  of,  and 
thence  to  be  talking  without  ang picture  in  mind.'"— (Ap.  Ex.  n.  392). 

Will  any  one  pretend  that  by  "  forma,"  in  these  and  a 
thousand  like  passages  of  Swedenborg,  are  meant  love  and 
wisdom  as  abstractions  I  or  pretend  that  the  simple  of  whom 
Swedenborg  speaks  meant  love  and  wisdom  by  " forma"?  or 
pretend  that  the  carver  of  an  idol  carves  after  love  and  wis- 
dom, and  not  after  outward  shape  ?  Is  there  a  single  pan- 
theist but  allows  that  his  "Power  of  the  World"  has  some- 
how a  Will  and  also  shows  Wisdom  ?  Is  not  the  Man-shape 
of  God  just  what  the  pantheist  denies  ?  is  not  the  Man-shape 
just  what  the  unruined  Christian  clings  to  ?  is  not  this  Man- 
shape  just  what  the  Lord  taught  to  Philip  (John  xiv.  8-11)  ? 
I  beseech  you,  hear  this  thing  which  lies  on  bed-rock : 
The  true  thought  of  God  lies  in  thinking  from  His  Es- 
sence, and  in  thinking  about  His  Shape.  Thought  from  His 
Essence  is  far  other  than  thought  about  His  Essence  ;  more- 
over this  last  is  utterly  unthinkable.  Thought  from  His  Es- 
sence lies  in  thinking  from  the  Good  and  the  True,  which 
thinking  consists  in  thinking  to  do  the  Good  and  the  True 
(John  xiv.  22,  23) ;  for  these  are  His  Essence ;  this  only  is  to 
"remember  God."  And  this  thought  and  this  memory  are 
to  be  climbed  toward,  not  by  benevolent  aims  or  by  benevo- 
lent practices,  but  by  the  thorny  path  of  repentance ;  by  a 


253 

diligent  looking  into  the  life,  both  inner  and  outer ;  by  a  dis- 
covery of  the  evils  therein,  and  by  a  shunning  of  those  evils 
as  sins  against  God.  As  far  as  evils  are  shunned  as  sins,  the 
inward  unconscious  affections  become  purified,  and  an  in- 
ward genuine  love  of  others  takes  the  place  of  a  previously 
overpowering  yet  unconscious  love  of  self.  The  truth  that 
God  desires  is  truth  in  the  inward  parts  ;  and  the  wisdom 
which  He  gives  is  in  the  hidden  parts  ?  from  thence  it  steals 
out  and  down  into  conscious  wish  and  act  of  goodness  ;  and 
this,  when  it  thus  has  stolen  down,  is  the  Righteousness  that 
is  of  Him,  the  Lord.  The  Shape  of  God  about  which  a  man 
is  to  think  and  whereby  he  is  to  be  conjoined  in  thought 
with  the  Divine,  is  the  Body  which  Thomas  touched  and 
without  reproof  called  Lord  and  God.  How  bitterly  Chris- 
tians of  education  for  the  most  part  hate  this  Shape  is  told 
pretty  plainly  by  Swedenborg ;  but  it  is  absolutely  demon- 
strated among  his  supposed  followers  ;  of  whom  many  burn 
to  destroy  this  thought  of  God,  and  weekly  buffet  it  and  spit 
upon  it  and  set  about  destroying  it.  More  wan  at  this  day 
than  in  Swedenborg's  day,  I  think,  must  be  the  angels7 
hope  for  the  world's  perception  of  the  New-Church  truths — 
whereof  this  truth  is  the  head  of  the  corner. 

Men  who  have  no  capacity  for  Art  either  Divine  or  human, 
blot  out  the  idea  of  Shape  when  they  think  of  Form.  Form 
is  Arrangement,  they  say,  and  say  truly.  But  is  Form  not 
external  as  well  as  internal  ?  Has  a  thing  no  need  to  be 
arranged  upon  its  outside  as  well  as  through  its  inside?  Ar- 
rangement of  the  outside,  is  it  not  internal  also,  if  the  Arrange- 
ment of  the  outside  be  strictly  according  to  the  law  and 
type  of  the  Arrangement  that  prevails  within?  But  the 
pantheists  will  have  it  that  God  has  no  outside  ;  far  from 
Him,  say  they,  be  so  degrading  a  characteristic.  They  are 
all  for  Alpha  ;  they  will  have  no  Omega  ;  they  are  all  for 
the  Beginning ;  they  will  have  no  End  ;  they  are  all  for 
the  First ;  they  will  have  no  Last ;  they  can  conceive  no  ending- 
off  of  God,  unless  an  impossible  spatial  ending-off ;  nor  do  they 


254 

understand  that  Quality  can  take  Shape.  A  fine  being, 
they  think,  is  any  man  if  you  will  but  cut  off  his  feet  ;  feet 
are  humble  and  humiliating,  earthy,  dust-like.  A  fine 
being,  they  think,  is  any  man  if  you  will  but  take  away  his 
skin  ;  the  skin  is  an  external  thing,  and  is  by  no  means 
vital.  Their  thoughts  are  so  sensuous  that  in  Shape  they 
can  behold  nothing  spiritual ;  nor  can  they  find  in  Shape 
anything  of  Expression  or  Divine  Exist  ere.  If  you  take 
Space  and  Size  away  from  them,  they  think  Shape  has  de- 
parted too.  Show  them  a  dozen  statues  of  Venus,  varying 
from  life-size  to  miniature,  and  ask  them  whether  Shape  has 
anything  to  do  with  Space  and  Size  ;  and  they  will  only 
mutter  that  Shape  must  still  have  some  space  or  some  size, 
else  it  could  not  be  perceived  by  mortal  eye.  If  they  call  them- 
selves Swedenborgians,  they  will  probably  quote  you  a 
passage  from  the  Arcana  Coelestia,  n.  5253,  as  follows: — 
"  There  are  three  things  in  general  which  perish  from  the 
sense  of  the  letter  of  the  Word,  whilst  the  internal  sense  is 
coming  forth;  namely,  what  is  of  time,  what  is  of  space, 
and  what  is  of  person."  But  they  will  quote  in  their 
English,  which  mauls  Swedenborg's  Latin  ;  nor  can  the 
context  or  a  thousand  parallel  passages  from  Swedenborg, 
suffice  to  show  them  that  by  "  persona "  Swedenborg  here 
means  merely  "  this  person  or  that  person,  as  distinguished 
by  his  one  individuality  from  all  other  persons."  He  means 
what  the  apostle  means  when  saying  that  God  is  no 
respecter  of  persons  ;  and  he  means  nothing  more. 


255 
THE  THREE  BAPTISMS. 

Baptism  means  essentially  a  washing  or  cleansing,  and  in 
the  literal  sense  it  is  of  three  orders.  The  two  higher  are 
internal,  and  are  not  within  man's  consciousness.  The 
lowest  is  external,  and  must  be  a  conscious  act.  The  lowest 
is  a  voluntary  and  deliberate  cleansing  of  the  cuticle.  The 
highest  is  a  burning-up  of  impure  and  effete  particles 
throughout  the  whole  interior  of  the  body  (except  in  the 
bones),  and  is  effected  by  a  union  of  oxygen  in  the  arterial 
blood  with  the  worn-out  carbon  against  which  it  washes. 
Every  one  burns  thus  yearly  an  amount  of  carbon — the 
purest  coal — very  nearly  equal  to  his  weight ;  and  it  is  from 
this  inmost  baptism  of  fire  that  the  heat  of  the  body  is 
mostly  derived.  The  less  interior,  but  still  internal,  bapt- 
ism is  that  of  the  breath  ;  and  it  goes  on  in  the  lungs,  and 
consists  in  the  process  of  washing  the  blood  by  means  of 
air,  just  as  in  the  other  the  body  is  washed  by  the  blood. 
The  blood  in  the  lungs  gives  up  to  the  fresh  air  with  which 
it  is  washed,  its  carbon  just  gathered  from  the  body  ;  and  in 
exchange  the  blood  takes  from  the  air  the  air's  oxygen. 
This  new  supply  of  oxygen  then  goes  the  rounds  of  the 
body  in  the  blood  ;  washes  off  the  carbon  as  before  ;  brings 
it  back  through  the  veins  to  unload  it  in  the  lungs  ;  and 
thus  baptism,  or  cleansing,  goes  on  through  life.  This 
baptism  of  the  breath  is  called  by  that  name  in  the  Word ; 
but  it  is  a  baptism  of  the  spiritual  organization  that  the 
Word  is  speaking  of.  He  shall  baptize  you  with  the  Holy 
Breath.  Jesus  breathed  on  His  disciples  and  said,  Receive 
ye  the  Holy  Breath.  The  wind  bloweth  where  it  listeth, 
and  thou  nearest  the  sound  thereof,  but  canst  not  tell 
whence  it  cometh  nor  whither  it  goeth  ;  so  is  every  one 
that  is  born  of  the  Breath.  The  Holy  Breath  came  as  a 
rushing  mighty  wind. 

The  inmost  baptism,  then,  is  by  the  blood,  and  is  of  fire  ; 
the  inner  is  by  the  breath,  and  is  in  the  lungs  ;  the  outer  is 


256 

by  water,  and  is  of  the  skin.  Blood  means  the  affections, 
and  so  does  fire.  Breath  answers  to  the  intellect,  and  so  do 
the  lungs.  Water  answers  to  the  conscious  truths  of  the 
natural  external  mind ;  and  the  skin,  as  being  the  external 
of  the  body,  relates  to  the  outward  consciousness,  to  the  life 
of  action.  The  moral  baptism  of  water  consists  in  man's 
applying  to  his  conscious  life  (as  well  of  intention  and 
thought,  as  of  act)  the  truths  necessary  to  purify  that  life 
from  its  evils,  through  abstinence  from  those  evils  according 
to  the  inhibitions  of  those  truths.  The  moral  baptism  of 
the  Breath  is  not  man's  work,  but  is  a  work  that  belongs  to 
the  Unconscious,  and  still  beyond  belongs  to  the  Not-me,  to 
God.  To  God  likewise  belongs  that  inmost  work  of  fiery 
washing.  It  is  only  the  lowest  and  outermost  of  the  planes 
of  being  that  lies  within  our  ken ;  the  spiritual  and  celestial 
regions  in  us  are  as  little  within  our  scope  as  the  internals 
of  the  body  are  under  our  control.  They  are  healthiest 
when  we  are  least  conscious  of  their  existence.  He  knows 
wisdom  in  the  inner  parts,  whose  inner  parts  are  in  order. 
The  pure  in  heart  are  they  that  shall  see  God ;  not  they 
that  polish  bright  their  images  of  Him.  A  good  under- 
standing have  all  they  that  keep  His  commandments ;  but 
not  so  those  who  can  only  expound  His  ways. 

The  exercise  of  following  up  these  analogies  minutely  and 
in  a  scientific  manner,  is  a  healthful  one  for  the  ordinary 
type  of  the  religious  mind  to-day.  The  wild  freaks  of  imag- 
ination which  this  type  of  mind  is  given  to,  are  held  strictly 
in  check  by  the  facts  of  sense  and  by  the  logical  process,  if 
such  minds  can  bring  themselves  to  submit  to  its  demands ; 
and  their  aspirations  toward  the  ideal  are  at  the  same  time 
gratified  in  a  sane  and  orderly  way.  By  all  means  the  aim 
of  religious  thought  and  speculation  should  be  Conduct ; 
but  to  most  men  this  is  impossible,  because  they  mostly  do 
not  have  this  aim.  And  until  they  shall  have  this  aim,  it 
surely  is  better  to  theorize  and  reason  with  some  allegiance  to 
fact  than  to  roam  fancy-free. 


257 
THE  PEKSONAL  DEVIL. 

The  New  Church  doctrines  teach  with  distinctness  the 
personality  of  the  devil.  He  goes  about  as  a  roaring  lion, 
seeking  whom  he  may  devour.  Sometimes  he  appears  as  a 
serpent,  sometimes  as  a  dragon.  I  recall  an  old  edition  of 
Bunyan's  "  Pilgrim's  Progress,"  in  which  there  is  a  truthful 
picture  of  him  as  a  vampire  or  mighty  bat.  All  these  things 
are  symbols  or  correspondences.  If  I  should  see  the  devil, 
I  am  sure  he  would  be  in  red,  and  have  horns,  and  would 
sweep  his  tail  about.  Luther  saw  him  at  the  Wartburg, 
and  hurled  a  bottle  of  ink  at  him  which  hit  the  wall — I  my- 
self have  seen  the  dent — and  Luther  kept  on  flinging  ink  at 
him  life-long.  In  the  J)eutsche  Mythologies  if  I  remember, 
Grimm  says  the  devil  of  a  tribe  of  Australian  savages  is  a 
goat ;  and  he  wonders  why  a  goat  should  be  pitched  upon 
as  a  symbol.  No  adept  of  Swedenborg's  wonders  why.  He 
sees  that  these  pictures  of  the  devil  are  most  truthful.  To 
him  such  a  picture  says  as  much  as  could  in  words  be  said 
in  half  an  hour.  He  understands  it.  Others  do  not  under- 
stand it;  but  they  sometimes  feel  it  better  than  can  be 
understood. 

These  ideas,  and  first  and  foremost  the  idea  of  the  devil 
as  a  personal  being  instead  of  the  mere  principle  of  evil,  are 
thoroughly  Swedenborgian  ideas.  They  are  the  old  ideas 
likewise.  The  difference  between  the  old  system  of  belief 
and  the  Swedenborgian  system  is  this  ;  — In  the  old  system, 
these  ideas  are  conceived  from  without ;  and  one  gets  only 
an  external  and  superficial  notion,  a  notion  of  the  outside. 
In  the  Swedenborgian  system,  they  are  conceived  from 
within,  and  an  idea  of  the  inner  contents  of  the  pictures  or 
word  paintings,  is  obtained.  The  mere  picture  is  the  same 
with  each  of  the  two  systems.  With  one,  the  picture  is  a 
picture  of  a  thing  in  the  world  of  matter;  with  the  other  it 
is  at  the  same  time  a  picture  of  things  innumerable  in  the 
world  of  mind. 


258 

To  assert  that  the  devil  is  a  personal  devil,  and  not  the  ab- 
stract principle  of  evil,  is  not  distinctively  the  ancient  teach- 
ing. To  deny  it  is  by  no  means  Swedenborgian  teaching. 
There  is  no  such  thing  as  impersonal  evil ;  and  there  is  no 
such  thing  as  impersonal  goodness.  "We  might  as  well  speak 
of  sight,  considered  apart  from  the  eye  ;  or  of  hearing,  apart 
from  the  ear ;  or  of  loving,  apart  from  the  delights  of  the 
heart.  The  foundation  of  the  devil  and  of  all  deviltry  is  his 
up-and-down  personality.  The  devil  is  a  Me,  on  every  oc- 
casion ;  never  is  he  a  theory.  And  therein  lies  his  charm,  his 
overwhelming  force  against  us. 

If  a  Swedenborgian  casts  off  the  notion  of  Satan  as  being 
personal,  he  will  at  some  time  have  to  pick  it  up  again.  In 
the  first  place,  all  the  devils  are  personal ;  because  there  is 
no  devil  of  all  but  comes  of  the  human  breed,  and  all  men 
are  and  always  have  been  personal.  Personality  consists  of 
Wish  good  or  evil,  of  Reason  or  of  Cunning,  and  of  Deed 
fair  or  foul.  In  wish,  thought  and  deed,  all  in  the  heavens 
are  unanimous  or  one-spirited,  in  their  way  ;  and  so  are  all 
in  the  hells,  in  theirs.  Either  lot  of  spirits,  when  taken  to- 
gether, shows  as  one  man ;  because  all,  in  each  set,  are  of  one 
spirit ;  and  the  spirit  makes  the  man  and  is  the  man  ;  and 
unity  of  spirit,  when  it  is  perceived  by  the  seer  or  the  seeing 
eye,  is  perceived  as  unity  of  manhood,  as  one  man  numeric- 
ally. And  in  either  world  this  law  of  vision  is  the  same. 
Therefore  we  say  of  forty  million  Britons,  if  they  be  of  one 
mind,  that  she  is  about  to  go  to  war ;  and  of  a  hundred  mil- 
lion Russians  (since  the  Czar's  mind  is  theirs,  and  theirs  is 
thus  one  mind)  that  she  is  about  to  annex  a  territory.  I 
myself,  when  I  hear  this  said,  think  of  one  human  being, 
and  have  in  my  mind  the  picture  of  just  one :  I  dare  say 
with  all  men  it  is  the  same.  Of  the  unanimous  man,  of  the 
man  complex — on  earth,  over  earth,  or  under  earth — no  in- 
dividual member  is  aught  more  than  a  detail,  a  differentia- 
tion, an  accentuation  of  some  one  of  the  characteristics  of  the 
man  unanimous,  complex.  Grand,  The  good  man  complex  is 


259 

one  man  erect ;  his  head  above,  his  feet  beneath.  The  evil 
man  complex  is  equally  one  man,  but  upside  down  and  heels 
over  head  ;  the  celestial  at  foot,  the  sensual  at  the  top  and 
thoroughly  masterful.  So  stand  Hell  and  Heaven,  foot  to 
foot ;  like  a  man  and  his  image  in  calm  water,  when  they 
catch  the  eye  of  the  steady-minded  Seer. 

Therefore  in  heaven  and  in  hell  any  man  visible  may  turn 
out  to  be  one  man,  or  he  may  be  many  ;  only  time,  that  is, 
some  change  of  state,  will  show  which  he  is.  Michael  and 
Gabriel  are  not  any  one  person,  but  Michael  is  all  of  a  certain 
type,  and  Gabriel  is  all  of  another  type.  He  is  a  society.  See 
that  society,  and  see  it  well,  with  deep  and  wide  vision,  and 
you  see  one  man,  one  only ;  but  he  is  also  a  myriad.  See 
one  of  that  myriad,  and  no  less  than  before,  you  will  see  one 
man,  but  that  one  is  less  a  man  than  the  other.  Out  of  this 
law  of  vision  and  this  law  of  being  it  came  that  when  the 
Lord  drove  the  devils  from  the  tomb-dweller,  He  said,  not 
What  are  your  names  1  but "  What  is  thy  name  ?  "  And  those 
devils,  speaking  through  the  man's  mouth,  "  said  My  name 
is  Legion,  for  we  are  many."  And  the  Lord  said  to  them 
one  and  all,  "  Come  out  of  him,  thou  unclean  spirit " — not 
spirits.  And  we  read  that  thereupon  the  devils,  not  the 
devil,  entered  into  the  swine. 

Now  this  personal-devil  doctrine  is  not  an  exceptional 
phrase.  As  a  rule,  there  is  no  reason  for  the  Swedenborgiaii 
to  reject  the  ancient  phrases.  Mostly  they  stand  on  the  lit- 
eral sense  of  the  Word  ;  and  like  that  sense,  they  are  the 
containing  vessels  of  the  Spiritual  in  all  its  holiness  and 
power.  It  is  not  new  expressions  of  theology  that  consti- 
tute the  New  Church  in  a  man,  but  expressions  of  a  new  lif e 
are  what  constitute  it.  The  New  Church  is  the  new  man 
himself  ;  the  man  renewed  in  his  mind ;  and  Kepentance  is 
the  cord  by  which  is  let  down  from  God  out  of  heaven  the 
great  golden  Town.  Innerly,  the  phrases  of  the  Old,  with 
men  who  are  grounded  in  the  good  of  life,  are  not  falsehoods 
but  are  general  and  indeterminate  notions  which  an  innerly 


260 

good  purpose  unconsciously  determines  into  specific  truth 
whenever  occasion  demands  ;  and  such  truth  more  or  less 
breaks  then  its  way  to  the  mind's  surface,  like  dawn  from  the 
sun  not  yet  risen.  With  those  phrases  men  have  been  saved, 
are  saved  now,  and  will  be  saved.  They  are  fading  away,  how- 
ever, and  with  the  phrases  are  fading  also  away  the  old  sym- 
bols which  only  the  New  Interpretation  can  uphold  and  defend. 
The  future  role  of  the  New  Interpretation  will  be  that  of  a 
conservator  and  apologist.  As  a  strong  man  guides  and 
steadies  with  tender  solicitude  his  blind  old  tottering  father, 
not  crossing  him  but  humoring  his  childishness,  will  the  New 
•Doctrines  support  and  strengthen  the  old  expressions  of  dog- 
ma. The  New  Doctrines,  however,  will  strengthen  them 
from  within  and  not  from  without ;  will  put  a  new  spirit  into 
them ;  and  will  cause  the  dry  bones  of  hoary  age  to  be  cov- 
ered by  degrees  with  flesh  and  beauty.  We  shall  pass  out 
of  Egypt,  bearing  many  vessels  borrowed  of  Egyptians.  Not 
a  jot  or  tittle  of  the  old  law  shall  pass  away  till  all  be  ful- 
filled :  it  was  hollow  before,  and  now  it  shall  be  filled  full. 
This  Doctrine  came  not  to  kill  and  destroy,  but  that  the 
dead  and  dying  doctrines  of  Christendom  might  have  life  and 
have  it  more  abundantly  It  brings  peace,  not  a  sword.  That 
the  former  things  might  pass  away,  it  comes  ;  but  all  things, 
even  the  former  things,  are  now  made  new ;  and  not  other- 
wise do  they  pass  away  than  in  that  they  are  now  made  new. 
The  doctrine  of  actual  Repentance  is  the  real  Seer,  the  real 
Apostle  of  the  New  Age.  Truth  shall  spring  out  of  the 
earth  whenever  righteousness  shall  look  down  from  heaven. 
Into  the  old  formulas,  based  on  the  letter  of  the  Word, 
the  new  doctrines  can  find  their  way,  as  the  thoughts  of 
angels  flow  into  children's  simple  mental  pictures.  And 
just  as  angels  well  understand  the  Word  when  it  is  heard  by 
children,  who  catch  only  the  most^external  meaning,  so  time 
and  time-again  it  happens  that  an  ancient  formula,  external 
as  it  is,  sums  up  whole  pages  of  New-Church  doctrine. 
Many  of  the  old  formulas  seem  especially  contrived  to  be- 


261 

come  vessels  recipient  of  the  new  truths,  and  to  become  def- 
initive of  these  truths.  The  insinuation  of  truths  into  those 
formulas  does  not  seem  thus  far  to  have  engaged  attention. 
The  parable  of  the  wheat  and  the  tares  deserves  here  an  ap- 
plication. No  man  gains  anything  better  in  hearing  as- 
saults upon  the  best  he  possesses.  To  root  up  the  ancient 
phrases  is  to  root  up  the  hearty  good  with  whose  roots 
those  phrases  are  as  yet  almost  inextricably  entwined. 


THE  EEGENERATION  OF  SCIENCE 

If  we  ask  a  man  of  science  what  he  understands  by  its  re- 
generation, he  will  tell  us  doubtless  that  properly  the  term 
is  applied  to  the  result  of  a  new  activity  of  the  scientific  mind, 
which  appears  in  the  removal  of  ancient  falsehoods  and  the 
substitution  of  new  truths.  Such  an  operation  has  been  ac- 
complished within  the  past  hundred  years. 

There  is  no  person  whose  religion  is  aught  but  blind  super- 
stition, that  does  not  bid  this  development  of  science  god- 
speed. As  far  back  as  history  or  tradition  reaches,  the  pro- 
gress of  science  may  be  called  in  one  sense  a  progress  back- 
ward. Whilst  the  race  was  more  and  more  transferring 
consciousness  from  the  inner  regions  of  the  mind,  where 
in  its  infancy  it  largely  lay,  outward  to  those  that  bor- 
der on  the  senses  and  the  material  world,  the  direction 
of  the  movement  impressed  its  characteristics  on  every 
mental  operation.  And  minds  which  were  still  able  to 
grasp  strongly  the  conception  of  spirit,  because  not  im- 
mersed in  that  of  matter,  retained  a  vague,  but  almost 
innate  idea  of  the  truth  that  the  former  is  the  grand  cause, 


262 

and  the  latter  its  effect  and  outbirth.  Yet  these  remote  an- 
cestors were  in  a  state  which  now  must  seem  or  be  called  one 
of  self-absorption — at  least  as  compared  with  us,  or  more  at 
least  than  we,  who  have  so  determined  reflection  to  the  outer 
world  that  our  consciousness  appears  constantly,  in  every  sen- 
sation, as  if  existing  there.  And  however  well-founded  was  their 
doctrine,  or  rather  their  feeling,  that  prototypes  are  spiritual, 
and  that  all  natural  forms  are  imprints  of  them  in  matter,  a 
state  of  mind  in  them  which  perhaps  might  now  be  considered 
one  of  overweening  self -consciousness  and  of  lack  of  humility 
towards  the  supreme  laws  of  nature,  produced  a  virtual  per- 
version of  this  truth ;  and  the  philosophy  which  afterward 
developed  itself  did  practically,  if  unintentionally,  place  the 
general  prototype  not  in  an  enlightened  idea  of  one  infinite 
spirit,  but  in  the  mental  quality  of  the  several  philosophizers. 
Had  the  human  mind  retained  intact  the  likeness  of  the 
Original,  these  attempts  to  conform  the  world  without  to  the 
world  within  might  have  resulted  differently.  But  the 
spiritual  nature  was  distorted  and  disfigured ;  the  untuned 
chords  of  the  soul  found  no  responsive  harmonies  in  nature ; 
and  science,  or  what  passed  for  it,  either  recoiled  abruptly 
from  a  union  with  religion,  or  else  was  wrenched  to  an  em- 
brace. For  thousands  of  years,  the  thinkers,  like  Mahomet 
with  his  mountain,  desired  to  reduce  reality  to  their 
conceptions  of  it;  and  like  the  most  bigoted  of  the  advocates 
of  some  popular  theology,  whenever  facts  happened  to 
oppose  their  notions  and  traditions,  were  in  heart  disposed 
to  retort,  "  So  much  the  worse  for  the  facts."  At  last  the 
morning  began  to  grow,  and  still  it  comes  brighter  and 
brighter.  The  sight  of  many  good  souls  is  dazzled  with  the 
sudden  change  from  that  long  night,  and  they  doubt  as  yet 
if  we  have  here  the  very  dawn.  There  are  also  certain  owls 
which  make  great  eyes,  and  twist  about  with  evident  em- 
barrassment. But  the  old  tyranny  of  preconception  grows 
weaker  every  day ;  and  men  are  becoming  more  and  more 
willing  to  take  facts  as  they  find  them.  One  result  of  this 


263 

change  is,  that  it  is  no  longer  possible  for  superstition,  called 
religion,  to  break  out  into  the  old  extravagances.  This  is 
why  every  rational  person  rejoices  at  the  recent  development 
of  science,  and  is  willing  to  dignify  it  with  the  name  of  re- 
generation. 

But  regeneration  is  a  name  which  may  be  given  to  a  far  dif- 
ferent process.  It  can  be  applied  far  more  justly  to  a  process 
which,  in  the  judgment  of  nearly  every  chief  of  science  at  the 
present  day,  must  seem  as  incomprehensible  as  formerly  to  a 
certain  master  in  Israel  who  knew  not  of  it.  If  the  regenera- 
tion of  the  mental  fabric  insinuates  a  certain  spiritual  affec- 
tion where  before  the  desires  were  only  natural,  and  com- 
municates spiritual  forms  of  thought  in  place  of  those  (or 
rather  icithin  those)  which  previously  related  simply  to  ma- 
terial objects  ;  and  if  it  causes  those  spiritual  thoughts  and 
affections  to  descend  into  merely  natural  conceptions  and  im- 
pulses, and  thus  so  to  clothe  themselves  that  the  latter  are 
seen  as  incarnations  and  images  of  the  former,  and  the  former 
are  felt  as  the  life  and  soul  of  the  latter — the  former  being 
thus  materialized  and  made  visible — then  a  like  work  re- 
mains to  be  accomplished  in  science.  As  far  as  regeneration 
concerns  the  intellect  alone,  a  work  quite  similar,  or,  to  be 
absolutely  exact,  the  very  same  work. 

The  progress  of  mental  development  is  with  every  one  of 
us  so  intimate  an  experience,  that,  like  something  pressed 
against  the  eye,  it  scarcely  lies  in  the  focus  of  objective  exam- 
ination. We  have  a  feeling,  however  vague,  of  what  we  are 
to-day.  We  have  some  information  about  the  cradle  state. 
But  the  process  of  change  from  this  to  that,  through  the  long 
years  seems  exceedingly  indistinct.  Yet  one  point  is  clear. 
Whatever  sublimity  of  abstract  thought  a  man  may  at  length 
attain,  the  time  was  when  a  touch,  a  sight,  a  sound,  were  the 
only  revelations.  There  is  no  feeling  of  our  nature,  no  idea 
within  our  comprehension,  but  is  based,  either  immedi- 
ately or  through  permutations  and  combinations,  upon 
the  senses.  The  word  "  sweetheart1'  suggests  an  idea  of  the 


264 

best  and  purest  that  lover  has  ever  felt  or  poet  sung.  And 
to  such  as  are  willing  to  believe  that  a  marriage  of  thought 
and  affection  is  possible  in  the  soul,  and  that  every  act  in 
daily  life  is  the  offspring  of  that  union,  it  brings  to  mind, 
under  parable  and  figure,  the  highest  and  holiest  that  has 
fallen  from  the  lips  of  divinity.  Was  this  word,  then,  coined 
in  heaven,  and  has  it  dropped  thence  to  us  like  the  Trojan 
image  1  No ;  you  can  trace  the  essence  of  its  force  and  signifi- 
cance, of  its  depth  and  touchingness,  back  to  the  conception 
of  a  fleshy  organ  weighing  ten  ounces  avoirdupois,  which 
pumps  the  blood  through  the  body — notably  into  the  cheeks 
and  lips — with  a  stroke  slow  or  quick,  according  to  the 
momentary  temper ;  I  say  you  can  trace  it  back  to  the  first 
sweets  that  were  put  into  baby's  mouth,  and  which  being 
duly  composed  of  certain  parts  of  carbon  and  certain  other 
parts  of  hydrogen  and  oxygen,  did  melt  there  de- 
liciously.  From  thus  low  the  idea  rose  to  heights  short 
of  infinity  alone ;  and  in  its  ascent  from  matter  to  spirit, 
the  analogies  between  spirit  and  matter  accompanied  it 
throughout,  and  raised  it  at  every  step.  There  is  no  idea 
that  has  not  such  a  basis  in  nature ;  and  if  a  natural  idea 
becomes  a  spiritual  one,  it  is  always  this  analogy  or  corres- 
pondence that  effects  the  change.  Correspondence  is  a  very 
magician ;  and  like  an  enchanter,  works  miracles  by  means  of 
images.  Is  it  not  the  Greater  Menstruum,  the  Egyptian's 
Ked  Tincture  that  turns  everything  into  gold  I  Is  it  not 
also  the  Lesser  Menstruum,  of  a  whitish  color,  that  changes 
into  silver  whatever  it  solves  f  We  have  found  at  last  the 
long-sought  philosopher's  stone — the  truth  which  in  the  hands 
of  the  genuine  lover  of  wisdom,  transmutes  into  noble  sub- 
stances every  base  substance  it  touches.  Its  touch  is  like 
that  of  old  Midas  gifted  by  the  god  of  wine.  And  so  far  as 
this  mighty  thaumaturgist  is  concerned,  there  is  no  differ- 
ence between  the  crude  and  phenomenal  conceptions  of 
nature  which  form  the  material  body  of  our  ordinary 
thought,  and  the  minutest  revelations  of  accepted  science ; 


265 

except  that  in  the  latter  those  disturbing  influences  which  an 
observer's  personality  always  more  or  less  impresses  upon 
the  observation,  have  been  more  nearly  eliminated,  and  the 
results  been  thereby  more  approximately  reduced  to  correct 
expressions  of  the  repetition  of  forms  or  types  of  the  spir- 
itual upon  the  plane  of  material  substance. 

For  science  too,  then,  there  is  a  regeneration,  a  resurrec- 
tion. Of  science,  too,  we  may  truthfully  say  that  it  is  sown 
a  natural  body,  but  shall  be  raised  a  spiritual  body.  That 
if  hitherto  it  has  borne  the  image  of  the  earthly,  it  shall  also 
bear  the  image  of  the  heavenly ;  and  that  though  this  first 
science  is  of  the  earth,  a  second  will  appear  in  its  body  no 
other  than  a  likeness  of  the  divine  truth  itself.  It  shall  not 
sleep  forever ;  but  shall  be  wholly  changed ;  and  its  dead 
substance  shall  be  raised  incorruptible.  Already  the  holy 
waters  have  begun  to  issue  out  from  under  the  threshold  of 
the  Lord's  house  ;  and  their  appointed  course  is  down  into 
the  desert  and  out  into  the  sea ;  and  when  they  reach  the  sea, 
its  waters  shall  be  healed,  and  every  thing  that  lives  and  moves 
whither  those  waters  shall  come,  shall  truly  b've  ;  and  there 
shall  be  a  great  multitude  of  fish  because  of  their  coming. 
In  the  language  of  correspondence,  the  name  of  "  healing 
waters  "  is  given  to  the  divine  truths.  The  "  house  "  from 
beneath  whose  threshold  they  gush  out  is  the  Word.  The 
"  desert "  they  refresh  is  the  natural  mind,  therebefore  a 
waste  and  also  void  of  every  token  of  real  life.  The  "  sea  " 
is  the  natural  memory,  and  the  "  fish  "  are  the  matters  of 
science  which  it  contains.  They  shall  all  live  spiritually, 
whenever  spiritual  truth  is  permitted  to  enter  them.  This 
prophecy  is  written  in  the  constitution  of  our  being.  "  For 
the  spiritual  man,  by  means  of  the  rational,  sees  his  spir- 
itual things  in  scientifics  as  a  man  sees  himself  in  a 
mirror,  and  recognizes  himself  in  them,  that  is,  recognizes 
his  own  truths  and  good;  and  also  confirms  his  spiritual 
things  by  knowledges  and  scientifics,  as  well  by  those 
known  from  the  Word  as  those  known  from  the  world." 


266 

The  ancient  mind  caught  a  glimpse  of  the  truth  that 
the  spiritual  man,  by  means  of  the  rational,  sees  his  spiritual 
things  in  the  sciences  as  a  man  sees  himself  in  a  mirror,  and 
recognizes  himself  in  them.  But  unconsciously  that  mind 
endeavored  to  force  the  outer  world  into  harmony  with 
principles  which,  so  far  from  belonging  to  the  Creator,  and 
from  being  thereby  omnipresent  and  all-applicable  in  nature, 
were  expressive  of  finite  attributes  alone.  Far  other  is  the 
path  over  which  a  rational  and  self-evident  system  of  analogy 
now  throws  a  stream  of  light.  The  mind  hi  which  science 
will  now  desire  to  be  lifted  heavenward  will  above  all  things 
be  humble,  knowing  its  vision  to  be  far  too  short  to  reach 
from  nature  back  to  God  Himself.  However  clear  and  ab- 
solute any  conception  may  at  present  appear,  or  how  much 
more  so  it  may  become,  the  workings  of  the  infinite  mind 
will  always  be  referred  to  a  point  still  beyond.  For  the 
first  time  in  all  historic  ages,  it  will  be  perceived  and  ac- 
knowledged that  order  is  heaven's  first  law ;  and  the  mani- 
fold series  of  degrees,  means,  adaptations  and  combinations, 
will  not  be  rashly  overleaped  in  attempting  to  trace  back 
the  links  of  the  chain  of  causation.  The  new  man  of  the  new 
age  will  be  too  thoroughly  convinced  that  the  universe  shows 
a  projection  of  the  outlines  of  infinite  wisdom  into  matter, 
to  need  that  such  conviction  should  be  propped  up  by  warp- 
ing those  outlines  to  suit  a  hasty  conclusion  as  to  parallelism 
with  the  Original.  Like  a  wise  one,  he  will  be  content  to 
take  at  first  the  lowest  room,  and  thereby  will  be  able  to 
receive  from  time  to  time  the  glad  bidding  of  the  Master, 
"  Go  up  higher."  He  will  be  assured  that  Nature,  were  it 
most  comprehensively  and  unmistakingly  examined,  would 
be  thoroughly  transparent  of  the  divine  light ;  but  also  he 
will  know  that  this  light  is  often  decomposed  by  the  media 
through  which  it  shines,  so  that  it  is  not  always  at  first 
recognizable ;  and  that  in  descending  it  is  refracted  earth- 
ward, so  that  the  object  that  transmits  it  must  often  be 
looked  at,  not  directly  but  aslant. 


267 

This  new  science  will  never  try  to  force  its  way  upward. 
It  will  ascend  so  far  only  as  it  is  beckoned  to  and  drawn  up 
by  spiritual  truth.  And  as  the  gates  of  hell  it  will  shun 
that  blind  and  fatuous  spirit  which  vainly  essays  to  plunge  a 
scientific  scalpel  into  the  depths  of  our  being,  with  aim  to 
search  out  matters  which  transcend  both  sensible  phenomena 
and  sensuous  reasoning.  As  well  might  a  man  "  endeavor 
to  discover  what  a  man's  will  is  from  an  examination  of  the 
muscles  which  fulfill  the  will  in  action."  For  material 
science  may  always  receive  and  retain  what  is  insinuated 
from  above,  but  may  never  create  and  propagate ;  and  Paul 
spoke  a  truth  as  broad  as  thought  and  existence,  when  he 
declared  that  flesh  and  blood  cannot  enter  into  eternal  life. 
This  impossibility  of  penetrating  into  spiritual  wisdom  from 
scientific  reasoning  and  comprehension  is  what  the  Lord 
compares  to  a  "  camel  entering  the  eye  of  a  needle."  As 
far  as  it  applies  to  the  Christian  Church,  the  serpent  story 
in  Genesis  has  the  same  signification.  Though  a  church 
or  a  man  is  able  to  eat  of  the  forbidden  tree  of  knowledge  in 
making  the  attempt  to  penetrate,  and  though  he  may  thus 
precipitate  his  fall,  yet  the  inner  truths  which  he  wills  to 
grasp  and  everlastingly  pervert,  are  mercifully  placed  be- 
yond his  reach.  The  tree  of  life  is  guarded  by  the  flaming 
sword  of  his  own  sensuous  proclivities,  which  turns  to  eveiy 
quarter,  and  by  restricting  him  to  the  things  of  sense  baffles 
all  his  efforts.  "  The  southern  land  of  light  and  heat,"  said 
our  heathen  forefathers,  "  is  so  bright  and  hot  that  none  can 
dwell  there  but  those  born  to  the  soil. "  Moreover,  "  a 
Swart  One  stands  at  its  border  and  waves  a  flaming  sword, 
that  no  one  may  go  in." 

The  descent  of  spiritual  truth  into  our  knowledge  of 
nature,  will  be  good  not  only  for  religion,  but  for  science, 
which  will  thus  attain,  by  sympathy  and  association,  a 
firmer  and  more  inward  foothold  in  the  mind, — a  foothold 
in  a  region  where  it  will  be  an  active  and  not  merely  a  pas- 
sive principle.  There  are  some  scientific  truths  that  seem 


268 

exceedingly  more  familiar  than  do  others.  We  feel  them  to 
be  reasonable  in  themselves,  and  hence  they  seem  a  part  of 
our  very  nature,  interwoven  in  the  fabric  of  our  being.  And 
seeming  thus,  they  are  like  instruments  with  whose  man- 
agement habit  has  rendered  us  so  familiar,  and  which  so 
readily  we  work  according  to  our  will,  that  volition  alone 
seems  to  produce  and  control  their  movements ;  just  as 
when  a  man  turns  suddenly  from  speaking  with  labor  a  lan- 
guage with  which  he  is  but  little  acquainted,  back  to  the 
tongue  in  which  he  thinks,  and  then  finds  the  words  flowing 
of  their  own  accord.  Thus  too,  I  must  believe,  with  these 
renewed  and  living  sciences.  They  will  seem  almost  native 
to  our  souls ;  and  we  shall  shape  them  readily  to  a  thousand 
adaptations,  and  recognize  them  under  a  thousand  shapes. 

How  the  waters  will  refresh  the  desert !  As  yet,  except 
to  those  who  follow  it  for  ends  for  the  most  part  either  above 
or  below  that  of  the  attainment  of  its  own  truths,  Science 
seems  a  thing  hard  and  dry  and  bare.  It  holds  but 
little  of  that  which  inwardly  delights  us  in  our  loves  and 
friendships.  Cold,  harsh  and  formal,  though  truth-telling, 
it  returns  us  no  embrace  if  we  caress  it.  But  in  the  coming 
times  of  the  New  Jerusalem,  scientific  studies  will  be  the 
true  humaniora,  the  genuine  humanities.  Science,  without 
abating  a  jot  of  its  uncompromising  and  inexorable  blunt 
truthfulness,  will,  by  virtue  of  Analogy,  gain  a  certain  hu- 
manness  of  feeling,  and  will  assume  to  every  one  a  manhood 
like  his  own.  The  outlines  of  the  Love-goddess  are  not  less 
lovely  for  being  shaped  in  hard  marble  rather  than  in  the  putty 
which  religionists  mostly  think  fit  stuff  for  a  scientific  cast  of 
thought.  That  inner  mind  which  underlies  our  outer  thought, 
&nd  which  is  rarely  thrown  open  to  our  consciousness,  has 
sometimes  pictured  to  itself,  and  projected  outward  into 
natural  images  according  to  inborn  laws  of  correspondence, 
a  renovation  such  as  this ;  and  the  gray-haired  poets  of  the 
nursery  and  fireside  have  handed  it  down  to  us  as  legend. 
The  love  of  science,  such  as  it  has  been  always  and  such  as 


269 

it  finds  itself  to-day, — heartless,  hopeless,  waiting  to  descend 
with  the  body  to  the  grave, — does  it  not  figure  disguised  in 
more  than  one  idle  tale  I  It  is  the  mermaid, — woman  from, 
the  waist  upward,  but  below  the  waist  a  fish.  Her  face  and 
form  are  lovely,  and  her  voice  is  not  less  ravishing  than 
that  of  the  sirens  that  well-nigh  wrecked  Ulysses.  She  lives 
in  the  depths  of  the  ocean,  and  her  term  of  life  is  three 
ages.  But  when  this  time  has  expired,  unless  meanwhile 
she  become  the  wife  of  a  veritable  man  and  thereby  have 
acquired  an  immortal  soul,  she  must  perish  utterly,  dissolv- 
ing into  froth  on  the  surface  of  the  sea.  The  love  of  science 
ought  to  be  wedded  to  a  truly  spiritual  intelligence,  and  ac- 
quire such  a  quality  of  taste  and  affection  as  is  able  to  out- 
last the  decay  of  the  senses.  It  is  the  yellow-haired  Neckar, 
whose  glorious  harp  travellers  often  hear  in  the  soft  summer 
nights  as  he  sits  on  the  face  of  a  river ;  but  this  water  sprite 
is  sad  at  heart,  despairing  of  eternal  life.  It  is  Undine  her- 
self, wave-born,  of  the  race  of  mermen,  beautiful  and  grace- 
ful, but  withal  mischievous  and  heartless;  sent  hither  to 
dwell  with  us  fishermen,  to  the  end  that  the  fellowship  may 
gain  her  at  last  a  human  soul. 

There  is  yet  another  reason  why  we  should  wish  to  hasten 
the  time  of  this  new  phase  of  natural  truth.  In  these  latter 
days,  an  eloquent  science  is  going  forth  to  prepare  the 
way  before  the  coming  of  the  divine  wisdom.  Like  the 
Baptist,  it  is  spreading  abroad  the  gospel  of  repentance, 
— not  indeed  from  evils  of  life,  but  from  false  doctrines  and 
blind  traditions.  The  voice  of  natural  truth,  like  the  Word's 
literal  sense,  according  to  the  figure,  is  crying  even  now  in 
the  wilderness,  feeding  as  before  on  locusts  and  wild  honey, 
— on  sensuous  facts  and  natural  loves, — and  is  clad  as  before 
with  the  camel's  hair  garment  of  scientific  embodiment. 
And  Jerusalem  and  Judea  and  the  Jordan  people  are  going 
out  to  it,  and  they  begin  to  confess  the  crimes  their  doctrines 
have  perpetrated  against  truth  and  justice.  And  it  washes 
away  much  outer  filth,  while  all  unable  to  heal  the  deep- 


270 

seated  diseases  of  which  Christian  doctrine  is  dying.  But 
alack!  does  it  lie  in  the  self -confident  spirit  of  modern 
Science  to  say,  of  the  Word's  inner  truth,  that  there  is  One 
who  comes  after  Science  who  is  mightier  than  Science,  whose 
shoe-latchet  even  it  is  unworthy  to  unloose?  Does  it  confess  it 
is  not  that  Light,  but  sent  only  to  bear  witness  of  the  One 
whom,  standing  among  us,  only  a  few  as  yet  know,  but  who 
still  is  that  Light  ?  Does  this  present  Science,  in  great  part 
atheistic  and  zealous  chiefly  for  name  and  fame,  seem  in 
heart  to  say,  "  He  must  increase,  but  I  must  decrease ;  he 
that  is  of  the  earth  is  earthy ;  He  that  cometh  from  heaven 
is  above  all?"  Not  until  Science  shall  thus  speak,  can  it 
become  the  Lord's  own  messenger,  sent  to  prepare  His  way 
before  Him.  Not  till  then  shall  it  be  found  a  burning  and  a 
shining  light,  a  prophet  and  more  than  a  prophet.  Until 
then  Science  is  but  a  reed  shaken  with  the  wind. 


STEREOSCOPIC  VIEWS. 

A  thing  seen  with  two  eyes  does  not  seem  quite  twice  as 
bright  as  when  seen  with  one  eye.  The  principal  benefits 
gained  by  double  vision  are  not  those  of  increased  brilliancy 
of  color  and  clearness  of  outline.  In  order  to  understand 
this,  shut  one  eye  and  use  the  other  to  see  how  near  a  gas 
jet  you  can  pass  your  finger  by  guess,  without  getting 
burned.  You  will  find  that  however  plain  the  flame  is,  and 
however  plain  your  finger,  you  have  no  means  of  estimating 
by  sight  alone  the  distance  of  these  objects  from  yourself, 
nor  consequently  their  distance  from  each  other.  To  the 
single  eye  everything  is  revealed  merely  as  lying  somewhere 


271 

in  a  straight  line  projected  from  the  eye  toward  the  thing. 
But  the  doubled  eye  surveys  by  triangulation.  The  distance 
between  the  eyes  forms  the  base  of  the  triangle ;  the  two 
sides  are  drawn  from  each  eye  to  the  object  looked  at ;  and 
the  apex  is  that  object.  And,  given  the  base  and  the  adja- 
cent angles,  we  can  estimate  readily  and  unconsciously  the 
perpendicular  let  fall  from  the  apex  upon  the  base — in  other 
words,  the  distance  from  the  object  to  the  middle  of  the 
nose  between  the  eyes. 

In  another  respect  are  two  eyes  better  than  one.  They 
make  a  man  able  to  see  part  way  round  a  thing.  Instantly 
they  do  what  gradually  a  man  effects  by  moving  the  head  from 
side  to  side  when  he  exam  hies  an  object  closely.  If  what  one 
is  looking  at  is  large  and  unwieldy,  he  is  forced  to  go  round 
it,  in  order  to  see  it  from  different  points  of  view.  If  small, 
it  is  made  to  revolve,  and  this  produces  the  same  effect.  In 
both  cases,  however,  though  he  certainly  has  done  himself 
the  service  of  seeing  more  than  one  part  of  it,  he  has  labored 
under  the  disadvantage  of  seeing  the  several  parts  not  all 
together,  but  in  succession,  and  consequently  his  idea  of  the 
relation  between  those  parts  cannot  be  clear  and  pictorial. 
And  if  their  relation  is  not  clearly  seen,  they  then  exist  in 
the  mind,  not  justly  and  truly  as  parts  united  by  their  rela- 
tions, but  as  fragments  approximately  independent  of  each 
other.  Otherwise  in  double  vision.  In  this  we  not  only  re- 
ceive different  views  of  the  same  thing  without  changing 
either  its  position  or  our  own,  but  we  receive  them  at  the 
same  instant,  and  as  one  composite  view.  This  is  the  second 
great  advantage  of  a  "  span  "  of  eyes,  if  I  may  say  so,  over 
one  eye,  or  over  two  eyes  not  placed  abreast. 

And  out  of  this  benefit  springs  a  third.  Two  eyes  recog- 
nize relief.  One  eye  sees  only  a  picture.  Therefore  two  eyes 
must  judge  of  the  solidity  or  reality  of  a  thing.  From  the 
single  eye,  depth  and  thickness  vanish,  and  superficies  and 
superficialities  only  remain.  The  factor  which  converts 


272 

seeming  into  being  is  cancelled ;  and  appearance  and  reality 
are  represented  as  one  and  the  same  quantity. 

This  principle  of  double  vision  has  been  applied  in  vari- 
ous ways,  and  indeed  with  great  success,  to  the  photo- 
graphic art.  The  operator  photographs  an  object  from  a 
convenient  point,  and  then  moving  his  instrument  to  the 
right  or  left  a  distance  greater  or  less  according  to  circum- 
stances, photographs  it  again  from  this  second  point.  The 
two  pictures  are  then  pasted  on  a  card  beside  each  other, 
and  are  known  as  stereoscopic  views.  When  looked  at  under 
glasses  properly  arranged,  one  view  before  each  eye,  the  two 
become  a  single  impression;  and  in  this  case,  if  the  object 
photographed  was  small  and  near  at  hand,  the  combination 
gives  the  same  effect  that  the  object  itself  would  give,  in  the 
eyes  of  a  person  standing  near  it.  And  if  the  object  was 
large  and  distant,  the  combination  gives  the  same  effect  that 
the  very  object  would  give  if  brought  up  close  to  the  ob- 
server, and  dwarfed  as  it  approached  him.  Or,  what  is  the 
same  thing,  it  gives  the  very  effect  that  would  result  if  that 
large  and  distant  object  stood  fast,  and  the  man  who  looked 
at  it  were  made  miraculously  wide  between  the  eyes — say  a 
foot,  or  five  feet,  or  fifty  feet  wide. 

This  stereoscope  is  a  great  invention.  I  suspect  there  was 
right  hard  work  in  coming  at  it.  I  do  not  mean  hard  work  for 
old  Battista  Porta  (who  I  suppose  deserves  the  credit)  in  par- 
ticular, but  hard  work  for  the  universal  scientific  mind  of  hu- 
manity, which  may  perhaps  long  have  labored  toward  this 
issue,  and  doubtless  did  really  beget  the  idea  that  Porta  only 
conceived  and  brought  forth  to  the  world.  For  this  thought  was 
so  simple ;  and  humanity  is  so  unwilling  to  be  simple.  It  was 
so  natural ;  and  humanity  does  so  dislike  to  be  humble 
and  obsequious  toward  nature.  It  was  so  easy  to  be  got  at ; 
and  humanity  does  so  love  to  get  at  a  thing  by  long  round- 
about ways  and  with  show  of  incredible  labor.  It  lay 
so  plumb  before  the  scientific  nose;  and  that  nose  so 
instinctively  upturns  itself  at  everything  that  approaches 


273 

readily  and  willingly,  and  that  does  not  obligingly 
wait  in  dark  corners  to  be  cleverly  smelt  out  with  great 
glory  to  the  smeller's  olfactory  acuteness.  Any  one  can 
guess  the  secret  unconscious  under-thought  of  the  scientific 
faculty  whilst  it  brooded  over  the  yet  unhatched  invention, 
and  most  unintelligently  trampled  upon  it  as  much  as  dwelt 
upon  it,  and  out  of  mere  instinct  supplied  the  warmth  which 
finally  enabled  it  to  pip  the  shell.  Was  not  that  under- 
thought  surely  this  f "  How  abominable  is  the  new  heresy 

in  optics  !  Seeing  a  thing  from  one  position  is  enough.  See- 
ing from  two  points  at  once  is  ridiculous.  If  both  pretend  to 
be  views  of  the  same  thing,  and  yet  differ  from  each  other, 
is  not  that  a  proof  that  one  or  both  are  false  views  ?  Where 
is  the  man  that  dares  say  this  feat  is  possible  ?  be  off,  ye 
scamp ;  or  wait  for  the  madhouse,  and  be  damned  in  every 
synagogue  of  science!" 

The  mind  of  man,  as  well  as  his  body,  has  eyes.  The 
laws  of  mental  optics  are  like  those  of  natural  vision.  In 
the  mental  world  as  in  the  physical,  there  are  many  sights, 
and  some  of  them  are  real  and  some  are  only  superficial. 
They  lie  at  various  distances,  and  some  more  nearly  than 
others  concern  us.  There,  as  here,  varnishes  have  elevation, 
but  only  deep  things  have  perspective.  Surfaces  there 
have  lateral  and  vertical  extension  ;  but  realities  alone  have 
thickness  as  well  as  length  and  breadth,  and  by  con- 
sequence are  differently  seen  from  different  positions.  What 
natural  vision  calls  a  view,  that  does  spiritual  vision  call  a 
truth  ;  but  the  object  itself  is  called  the  Good,  whereof  the 
corresponding  truth  is  but  a  picture.  Happy  are  the  souls 
whose  inner  eyes  are  set  wide  apart.  For  they  look  at 
things  from  different  standpoints  all  at  once,  and  acquire 
not  one  view  alone,  but  several;  and  they  put  them  together, 
and  then  they  see  not  mere  depictions,  however  ac- 
curate, but  the  solid  realities  called  Goods.  They  also 
guess  well  about  spiritual  distances,  and  do  not  make  moun- 
tains out  of  molehills.  Whoever  will,  may  gain  this 


274 

vision.  From  birth  up,  a  proud,  selfish,  heavy,  one-eyed 
Polyphemus  oppresses  every  one.  That  one  eye  of  Bigotry 
must  be  put  out  wholly,  and  the  man  must  escape  in  deep 
humility  from  the  murky  cavern,  calling  himself  Outis,  con- 
fessing himself  a  mere  nobody.  Thenceforward  he  shall 
walk  abroad,  at  liberty,  in  the  light,  two-eyed,  unsquinting. 
In  the  mental  world  may  stereoscopic  views  also  be  taken ; 
although  most  theologians  and  many  philosophers  would 
sooner  die  than  take  them.  But  the  mental  vision  which, 
in  one  sense,  is  full  of  eyes  before  and  behind,  is  not  re- 
stricted to  the  double  picture.  It  sees,  or  may  see,  from 
many  quarters  at  once,  and  can  unite  into  one  conclusion 
innumerable  one-sided  views  of  the  whole  body  of  truth. 
The  peculiarities  of  the  several  Christian  denominations  are 
each  such  partial  views.  When  properly  considered,  their 
differences  are  far  other  than  contradictions.  Only  let  them 
be  really  views  of  the  same  thing,  namely,  religion  ;  and  let 
that  thing  be  to  each  a  real  object,  a  real  religion,  real  union 
to  God.  Let  each  have  two  eyes ;  let  their  eyes  be 
opened;  let  them  be  truly  human  and  not  diabolic  eyes. 
And  let  some  little  sunlight  shine  upon  the  object  of  their 
speculation.  That  sunlight  will  not  annihilate  denomina- 
tions. It  will  preserve  and  develop  them,  and  make  each 
denominational  banner  more  distinct  and  more  lofty  than 
before.  It  will  inspire  every  denominational  watchword  with 
a  new  emphasis,  and  at  the  same  time  with  a  sweetness 
hitherto  unnoticed.  As  between  the  denominations  thus 
renovated,  there  will  be  a  tender  love  and  a  high  esteem  in- 
conceivable to  those  selfish  ones  who  love  and  worship  only 
themselves  or  reverence  others  only  as  far  as  others  resemble 
themselves.  Differences  will  then  be  acceptable  to  all,  for 
each  man  may  through  them  be  enabled  to  supplement  his 
own  defective  being ;  and  the  present  stereotyped  views  of 
religion  will  then  be  exchanged  for  stereoscopic  views. 


275 
VOWEL-SOUNDS  AND  THEIR  SYMBOLISM. 

Swedenborg  divides  the  vowels  into  two  classes,  U  and  O 
—celestial  vowels ;  and  E  and  I — spiritual  vowels.  In  one 
place  lie  puts  A  with  the  first,  and  calls  it  a  celestial  vowel. 
In  another  he  puts  it  with  the  last,  and  calls  it  a  spiritual 
one.  Of  course  the  sounds  meant  are  the  continental  sounds ; 
the  English  pronunciation  being  completely  sui  generis. 
Swedenborg  wrote  in  Latin ;  and  the  pronunciation  of  Latin, 
everywhere  but  in  England  and  the  United  States,  is  the 
continental  pronunciation. 

The  character  of  a  vowel  is  determined  by  the  form  and 
length  of  the  vocal  tube  ;  if  we  understand  by  this  tube  not 
only  the  throat,  but  also  a  portion  of  the  mouth,  and  even, 
for  most  vowels,  the  whole  length  of  the  mouth.  The 
characteristics  of  each  vowel  must  be  known  before  the 
difference  between  the  vowels,  and  the  difference  between 
their  classes,  can  be  known.  The  explanation  may  be 
tedious  ;  and  it  will  be  useless  to  pay  any  attention  to  it, 
unless  the  processes  indicated  are  actually  performed  by  the 
organs  of  the  voice. 

Let  us  take  the  continental  values  of  the  vowel  letters,  viz., 
A  sounds  like  ah :  e  sounds  like  ay  in  pay :  i,  like  ee  :  o, 
like  o  in  note :  u,  like  oo  in  balloon. 

Begin  with  a  (ah\  which  is  the  real  centre  of  the  vowel 
scale.  This  sound  is  generated  at  a  certain  point  in  the 
throat.  There  is  no  present  need  of  entering  into  particu- 
lars about  the  trachea  and  glottis.  The  vocal  walls  are  now  at 
ease  ;  the  throat  is  free  and  uncontracted.  The  tongue  is 
well  away  from  the  roof  of  the  mouth,  and  gives  above  itself 
free  passage  to  the  vocal  column.  The  vocal  tube  reaches 
in  length  from  where  the  sound  is  generated  in  the  throat, 
out  as  far  as  the  lips, — the  lips  lying  in  a  natural  position. 

Sounding  o  (o  long),  and  comparing  it  with  a  (ah),  we  feel 
the  throat  somewhat  expanded:  we  find  the  "ring"  of  the 
voice  proceeding  from  a  little  deeper  in  the  throat,  and  we 


276 

see  the  lips  protruding  outward,  lengthening  the  mouth. 
The  characteristics  of  o  (oh)  are,  a  wider  throat  and  a  longer 
vocal  tube,  the  tube  being  lengthened  at  both  ends. 

Sounding  u  (oo),  and  comparing  it  with  o  (oh),  we  feel  the 
throat  open  still  wider  ;  we  find  the  "  ring  "  coming  from 
still  deeper  in  the  throat ;  and  we  observe  the  lips  protruding 
farther  outward,  so  that  the  mouth  is  still  farther  lengthened. 
The  characteristics  of  u  (oo)  are,  a  still  wider  throat  than  in 
the  case  of  o,  and  a  still  longer  vocal  column.  The  lengthening 
occurs  at  both  ends,  as  before,  but  in  greater  measure.  Some 
nations  make  u  (oo)  very  deep.  Its  depth  can  be  increased 
by  speaking  through  a  trumpet  or  other  tube.  If  its  base 
in  the  throat  could  also  be  moved  downward,  we  should 
have  another  vowel. 

Having  reached  this  extreme,  let  us  return  to  ah  as  the  cen- 
tral point ;  and  let  us  work  backward  from  that,  reversing  the 
mode  of  operation  we  have  just  been  following.  This  will 
give  us  the  close  vowels  ;  the  former  were  open  ones. 

Broad  a  (ah)  dwindles  gradually  down  and  closes  by  de- 
grees into  flat  a  (sounded  as  a  in  can)  ;  or,  if  prolonged, 
like  e  in  there).  It  reaches  this  sound  through  increasing 
contraction  of  the  throat,  through  approximation  of  the 
tongue  toward  the  roof  of  the  mouth  (by  which  the  size  of 
the  vocal  column  is  diminished),  and  through  shallowing  of 
the  voice. 

Now  e  (ay)  is  produced  from  this  flat  sound  of  a  by  so 
placing  the  upper  back  part  of  the  tongue  as  that  a  secondary 
or  smaller  vocal  column  shall  be  formed,  whose  front  por- 
tion (as  far  as  effect  upon  the  character  of  the  sound  is  con- 
cerned) shall  lie  near  the  middle  of  the  tongue,  instead  of 
(as  before)  at  the  lips.  The  vocal  column  is  also  shortened 
at  its  lower  or  inner  end ;  moreover  the  organs  near  the  base 
become  more  constricted.  The  "  ring  "  seems  to  come  from 
the  same  point  in  the  throat  as  in  the  case  of  a  flat.  But  this 
point  is  certainly  less  deep  than  in  a  broad  (ah).  This  less- 
ening of  depth  is  what  I  mean  by  shallowing  the  voice.  The 


277 

characteristics  of  e  (ay)  as  distinguished  from  a  (ah)  are, 
constriction  of  the  organs  and  practically  a  shortening,  or 
quasi  shortening,  of  the  vocal  tube  on  both  the  lower  and 
upper  ends. 

Sounding  i  (ee),  and  comparing  it  with  e  (ay\  we  find  that 
the  throat  has  become  still  more  contracted,  and  the  "  ring  " 
still  higher  up  in  the  throat.  This  last  shortens  the  vocal 
tube  on  the  lower  end.  It  is  also  shortened  on  the  upper 
end ;  this  is  done  by  jamming  the  organs  together  some- 
what as  in  pronouncing  a  consonantal  y;  consonantal  y  is  in 
fact  merely  a  still  more  closely  jammed  i  (ee).  In  u  (oo),  the 
vowel  farthest  from  i  (ee\  provision  was  made  for  exces- 
sive length.  In  i  (ee)  extra  shortness  is  brought  about 
by  placing  the  back  part  of  the  tongue  almost  close 
against  the  roof  of  the  mouth.  All  the  length  then,  practi- 
cally, of  the  vocal  tube  lies  between  the  point  of  origin  in 
the  throat,  and  this  aperture  between  the  tongue  and  the 
roof  of  the  mouth.  The  characteristics  of  i  (ee),  are  more 
complete  contraction  of  the  organs  ;  and  a  shortening  of  the 
vocal  tube  at  both  ends. 

We  find,  therefore,  that  u  (oo)  and  o  (oh)  are  distinguished 
from  e  (ay)  and  i  (ee)  by  openness  of  the  vocal  organs,  and  by 
the  absence  of  constriction  ;  also  by  great  length  of  the  vocal 
column.  It  is  from  these  qualities  that  they  are  called  celes- 
tial or  voluntary  vowels.  The  length  of  the  vocal  column  en- 
sures an  easy  flow  of  vibration,  from  which  follows  a  gentle- 
ness of  timbre — I  know  no  English  word  for  the  idea  con- 
veyed by  this  expression.  And  freedom  and  openness  cor- 
respond in  their  nature  to  the  will :  for  the  will  perishes  and 
becomes  no  will,  as  far  as  it  is  constrained.  On  the  other 
hand,  in  the  case  of  e  (ay)  and  i  (ee),  we  find  a  limitation  and 
constriction  of  the  vocal  organs — a  setness  and  unyielding- 
ness of  form  ;  as  also  a  shortening  of  the  vocal  column.  This 
last  induces  a  greater  harshness  of  timbre.  And  these  vowels 
are  called  spiritual  or  intellectual  ones,  because  the  charac- 


278 

teristic  of  the  intellect  is  form.  Form  is  limitation ;  it  must 
be  set  and  unyielding ;  if  not,  it  perishes  as  far  as  it  yields. 
Whoever  has  a  good  command  of  the  muscles  of  the  voice 
can  begin  at  one  end  of  the  scale,  for  instance  at  u  (00),  and 
slide  slowly  and  imperceptibly  to  the  other  end,  which  is  i 
(ee\  producing  in  succession  on  the  way  all  the  intermediate 
vowel  sounds  in  a  single  breath,  without  interruption  of  the 
voice,  and  without  making  any  one  point  of  distinction  between 
two  adjacent  vowels.  It  will  illustrate  what  I  say  about 
shortening  the  vocal  tube,  if  I  remark  that  performing  the  vo- 
cal scale  in  this  way  sounds  just  as  the  noise  of  water  when 
poured  into  a  vessel  which  is  gradually  filled  up  by  it  to  the  brim. 
The  deep  noise  which  is  first  heard  answers  to  the  vowel  u 
(00) ;  and  the  high  noise  produced  when  the  brim  is  reached, 
answers  to  the  vowel  i  (ee).  The  others  lie  between  these  two. 
Another  sound  or  set  of  sounds  can  be  heard  at  the  same 
time ;  one  set  changes  as  the  air-column  in  the  vessel  shortens ; 
the  other  set  changes  as  the  water-column  lengthens.  We 
select  different  points  on  this  scale,  and  name  them  as  distinct 
vowels.  But  different  nations  do  not  select  precisely  the 
same  points,  nor  do  communities,  nor  individuals  even.  One 
who  has  a  nice  ear  can  distinguish  a  dozen  different  shades 
of  a  single  vowel  in  the  voices  of  as  many  acquaintances. 
Few  Americans  fail  to  notice  the  variety  of  pronunciation  of 
the  vowel  a  before  r,  in  several  sections  of  the  country.  In 
the  South,  the  sound  becomes  very  broad,  verging  toward 
au  /  in  the  Middle  States,  the  Continental  sound  (ah)  is  pre- 
served; in  Eastern  Massachusetts,  the  sound  is  a  trifle 
flatter.  I  mention  these  differences  in  order  to  explain  why 
Swedenborg  in  one  place  call  a  (ah)  a  celestial  vowel,  and  in 
another,  a  spiritual  one.  A.  ranges  in  sound  all  the  way  from 
just  short  of  0  (oh)  down  to  just  short  of  e  (ay).  When  it 
verges  toward  0  (oh),  it  is  very  open,  and  is  to  be  called  a 
celestial  vowel  on  account  of  its  openness.  The  Danes  rep- 
resent by  aa  this  open  sound  of  a  :  we  call  it  au.  The  Swedes, 
when  they  put  a  small  circular  mark  over  «,  pronounce  it 


279 

intermediate  between  au  and  o  (oh),  thus  still  more  open. 
But  when  a  is  closed  into  the  flat  sound  (as  in  can),  then,  on 
account  of  its  closeness,  it  is  to  be  called  a  spiritual  vowel 

The  human  voice  is  a  wind  instrument  and  a  stringed  in- 
strument combined.  In  the  open  or  celestial  vowels,  the 
wind  attachment  (if  I  may  call  it  such)  seems  more  in  use ; 
in  the  close  or  spiritual  ones,  the  stringed  attachment.  The 
music  of  wind  instruments  corresponds  to  the  wishes  or  to 
the  voluntary7  part,  and  that  of  stringed  instruments  to  the 
thought  or  intellectual  part. 

Swedenborg  says  the  celestial  angels  cannot  sound  e  (ay) 
and  i  (ee),  but  change  them  into  eu  and  y.  The  reason  is 
that  e  (ay)  and  i  (ee)  are  intellectual  vowels,  and  the  celestial 
angels  do  not  admit  into  themselves  the  intellectual  purely 
such,  but  convert  it  into  the  voluntary.  Instead  of  e  (ay) 
they  have  a  sound  eu.  This  unites  the  sound  of  the  spiritual 
vowel  e  (ay),  and  the  celestial  vowel  ic  (oo).  And  simi- 
larly, instead  of  i  (ee)  they  have  y,  which  unites  the  sounds 
of  the  spiritual  vowel  i  (ee)  and  the  celestial  vowel  u  (oo). 
Both  these  composite  sounds  are  wanting  in  English.  They 
are  found  in  French,  and  in  most  Teutonic  tongues.  Eu  is 
nearly  the  French  eu  (as  in  peu — but  as  sounded  by  a 
Frenchman;  Anglo-Saxons  very  rarely  acquire  it),  or  the 
German  6'  (as  in  Ktoiig).  Both  this  sound  and  that  one 
which  Swedenborg  means  by  y,  must  be  learned  by  the 
ear.  To  produce  eu,  throw  the  lips  out  as  if  pronouncing  u 
(oo)  but  at  the  same  time  produce  e  (ay)  in  the  throat.  Thus 
we  unite  in  it  the  open  or  voluntary  vowel  u  (oo),  and  the 
close  or  intellectual  vowel  e  (ay).  It  might  be  called  a 
celestial-spiritual  vowel. 

Y  in  Swedish  is  pronounced  like  u  in  French  (as  in  du)9 
or  like  u  with  diaeresis  in  German  (as  in  mttde).  To  pro- 
duce it,  throw  out  the  lips  as  if  pronouncing  u  (oo),  but  at 
the  same  time  sound  i  (ee)  in  the  throat.  This  very  sweet 
sound  unites  the  voluntary  and  celestial  vowels  in  itself,  and 
may  be  called,  like  the  other,  a  celestial-spiritual  vowel.  In 


280 

aerial  vibration,  or  sound,  I  suppose  it  may  be  compared  to 
the  purple  color  in  the  vibration  of  ether,  which  is  light, 
and  which  blends  in  one  the  celestial  red  and  the  spiritual 
blue.  The  written  Yis  made  up,  like  its  sound,  of  £7  (or  F 
as  anciently  shaped)  and  T,  or  iota  subscript,  an  /being  below 
the  forked  V.  The  sound  represents  the  union  of  the  will  and 
the  understanding.  This  union  is  the  end  and  purpose  of 
regeneration  ;  it  takes  place  when  the  will  does  what  the 
understanding  knows.  Then  these  two  are  plainly  not  two 
but  one — harmonious  as  in  that  sound,  but  not  identical. 
So  the  Pythagoreans  in  their  figurative  way  called  this 
letter  "the  Symbol  of  Health."  And  then  they  took  the 
character  as  it  stood  after  composition  ;  and  disregarding 
the  signification  of  each  part,  and  taking  only  the  meaning 
of  the  whole,  called  it  the  "  Forkway  of  Life."  For  the  will 
and  understanding,  however  they  differ  on  earth,  are  in 
reality,  in  the  later  years  of  life,  steadily  converging  toward 
each  other,  in  both  the  good  and  the  bad  ;  and  in  the  other 
world  they  make  one  road,  both  in  the  heavenly  marriage, 
in  which  the  will  ascends  to  the*  understanding  and  becomes 
one  with  it  above ;  and  in  the  hellish  marriage,  in  which  the 
understanding  descends  to  the  will  and  espouses  it  below. 
The  formation  of  the  vowels  suggests  several  interesting 
points,  for  which  there  is  no  room  here.  The  formation, 
too,  of  consonants  from  vowels  is  extremely  interesting.  I 
cannot  imagine  any  picture  which  should  represent  more 
clearly  the  leading  truths  of  symbolism  with  relation  to  the 
human  mind  than  does  the  process  of  consonantal  forma- 
tion ; — the  three  degrees  of  the  mind  ;  the  existence  of  two 
parts  in  each,  with  their  differences  and  their  resemblances  ; 
the  ascent  from  degree  to  degree,  and  the  change  from  part 
to  part ;  the  outlines  of  regeneration,  and  the  heavenly 
marriage.  It  is  good  to  hear  these  truths  with  the  bodily 
ear;  and  to  find  the  senses — so  often  misinterpretable 
in  spiritual  matters — repeating  distinctly  the  teachings 
of  reason.  At  some  day,  the  walls  of  the  New  Jerusalem 


281 

will  rest  firmly  on  the  earth,  and  not  merely  tower  in  the 
air.  Not,  however,  before  we  shall  place  them  there  stone 
by  stone.  Nor  can  any  stone  be  placed  before  there  is  a 
desire  to  place  it,  and  an  eftort  to  place  it. 


THE  FORMATION  OF  CONSONANTS. 

(I  have  thought  it  better,  in  treating  this  subject,  to  avoid  scien- 
tific nomenclature.) 

In  a  previous  article  I  endeavored  to  describe  roughly  the 
formation  of  vowel  sounds,  and  tried  to  show  in  outline  the 
process  of  transition  from  open  vowels  to  close  ones.  This 
analysis,  in  dividing  them  into  two  general  classes,  took 
openness  and  freedom  in  pronunciation  as  the  principal 
ground  of  distinction.  The  open  vowels  were  represented  as 
properly  and  naturally  expressive  of  affection  or  emotion ; 
the  close  ones,  of  thought  or  reflection ;  the  middle  vowel,  of 
either  the  latter  or  the  former,  according  as  sounded  more 
open  or  more  close  ;  and  those  vowels  which  were  not  mediate 
between  the  two  classes,  but  united  the  characteristics  of 
both,  as  expressive  of  the  combination  or  union  of  those  two 
great  principles  of  the  mind.  I  endeavored  to  show  that  the 
primary  and  leading  vowel,  in  which  vocality  or  sonorous- 
ness is  the  purest,  is  the  most  open  one ;  that  this  open  sound 
is  gradually  modulated  and  contracted  by  the  organs  of  the 
voice,  and  is  thus  formed  into  derivative  vowels,  which  in 
succession  become  closed  more  and  more,  until  they  reach 
the  last  degree  of  closeness  which  enunciation  permits.  And 
this  process  of  forming  the  close  or  intellectual  vowels  from 
the  open  or  affectional  ones,  by  successive  limitations  and 


282 

adaptations,  was  represented  as  analogous  to  that  mental 
action  by  which  emotions  or  impulses  apply  themselves  to 
mental  images,  and  clothe  themseves  with  ideas  or  forms 
drawn  from  the  material  world,  and  thus  shape  themselves 
into  definite  and  perceptible  thoughts. 

In  examining  the  formation  of  consonants,  I  shall  merely 
extend  this  process  to  its  legitimate  conclusion ;  and  in  inter- 
preting these  audible  sounds  into  .corresponding  mental 
principles,  shall  be  guided  by  the  same  general  analogies. 

The  formation  of  the  consonants  is  a  subject  which,  so  far 
as  I  know,  has  received  but  little  attention  in  any  quarter.* 
At  all  events,  it  is  one  which  the  usual  course  of  liberal  edu- 
cation does  not  embrace.  Consequently,  not  only  is  the  ear 
itself  the  sole  authority  I  can  call  to  my  support,  but  also  it 
is  an  authority  which  must  vary  with  every  person,  in 
respect  to  accuracy  and  nicety  of  distinction,  according  to 
previous  cultivation.  Let  me  request  the  reader,  then,  to 
pronounce,  examine,  and  compare  these  sounds  as  they  come 
under  consideration,  however  familiar  already  they  may 
seem.  For  otherwise,  and  unless  he  clearly  perceive  their 
minute  characteristics,  the  endeavor  to  demonstrate  a  strict 
analogy  and  resemblance  between  them  and  qualities  of  the 
mind,  would  result  at  the  very  best  only  in  inducing  a 
belief  in  the  existence  of  general  and  undefined  analogy ; 
and  still  would  fail  to  render  those  qualities  themselves 
tangible  to  the  tongue  and  audible  to  the  ear,  as  (so  to  speak) 
they  may  become. 

The  essential  characteristic  of  the  vowels,  let  me  premise, 
is  Sound.  And  the  essential  characteristic  of  the  conso- 
nants is  Articulation. 


*  Since  1868,  when  this  little  essay  was  written,  the  study  of  con- 
sonantal formation  has  greatly  advanced.  I  regret  the  lack  of  time 
to  adapt  these  observations  to  later  discoveries.  A  method,  rather 
than  the  facts,  is  what  I  wish  to  set  before  the  reader. 


283 

The  primary  is  always  the  essential,  and  the  essential 
may  be  defined  as  that  which  a  thing  is  in  its  simplest  self. 
It  is  that  which  is  naked,  and  therefore  unvaried  and  unac- 
commodated. In  speech,  plainly,  the  essential  and  primary 
is  sound.  It  is  in  the  vowels  that  sound  is  most  nearly  naked. 
In  these,  as  compared  with  the  consonants,  the  voice  pours 
itself  out  most  freely,  and  rushes  forth  with  the  least 
modification.  Hence  the  vowel  sounds  are  the  essential  and 
primary  ones.  And  the  consonant  sounds  are  their  deriva- 
tions and  modifications  produced  by  various  dispositions  of 
the  organs  of  the  voice.  And  vowels  progress  and  ultimate 
in  consonants  by  a  regular  and  all-applicable  process.  Let 
me  indicate  it  by  such  examples  as  furnish  paradigms  in 
which  the  English  tongue  is  least  defective. 

As  before  with  the  formation  of  the  closer  vowels,  so  now 
with  that  of  consonants,  let  us  begin  with  the  most  open, 
and  from  this  let  us  derive  the  closer  by  successive  steps  ; 
and  on  inherent  and  audible  characteristics  of  the  sounds 
involved,  let  us  base  all  analogy  or  correspondence.  Here, 
however,  as  analogy  demands,  we  shall  find  a  third  class 
unknown  to  the  vowel  scale,  yet  still  a  completion  and  result 
of  the  process  which  before  was  begun  and  continued. 

Take  the  vowel  U — by  which  I  mean  not  the  diphthongal 
English  sound,  but  the  sound  this  letter  represents  in  most 
other  tongues,  and  which  may  be  indicated  in  English  by  oo. 

In  pronouncing  this  vowel  the  voice  flows  out  freely.  It 
may  seem,  indeed,  a  closer  sound  than  A  (ah),  because  the 
lips  are  protruded  in  producing  it,  and  the  external  orifice 
thus  becomes  smaller.  But  the  protrusion  of  the  lips  pro- 
ceeds from  an  effort  to  lengthen  the  vocal  column  ;  and  as 
for  the  size  of  the  outer  opening,  this  does  not  affect  the 
essential  and  distinctive  character  of  the  vowel ;  for  that 
character  is  determined  by  the  form  of  the  lower  part  of  the 
column,  which  lies  in  the  throat  where  the  sound  originates. 
What  proves  this  is,  that  U  (oo)  can  be  produced  in  a 
recognizable  form  without  protruding  the  lips  ;  as  may  also 


284 

A  (ah),  although  the  lips  be  protruded.  But  in  the  throat 
itself  the  difference  is  noticeable.  In  A  (ah)  the  throat  is 
rather  open  ;  but  in  U  (oo)  its  walls  are  expanded  still 
wider,  and  are  felt  to  be  expanded.  U  (oo)  is  the  most  open 
vowel  ;  and  in  it  the  vocal  sound,  because  least  modified, 
exists  in  what  I  shall  call  its  "  prior  "  state. 

But  now  dispose  the  lips  into  a  more  confined  and  re- 
strained position  than  before  ;  and  endeavor  to  give  the  vocal 
stream  a  more  straitened  and  determinate  form.  The  result 
is  "W.  To  observe  its  power,  let  some  other  vowel  sound 
follow  it  immediately ;  let  us  pronounce,  for  illustration,  the 
word  we.  This  W  sound  stands  second  in  the  order  of 
derivation.  Between  U  (oo)  and  W,  the  relative  conditions 
are  chiefly  those  of  freedom  and  restraint,  as  also  of  openness 
and  limitation:  of  freedom  and  openness  in  U,  and  of 
restraint  and  limitation  in  W.  W  is  merely  a  moulded  U. 

If  after  producing  W,  we  constrain  the  lips  still  further,  and 
employ  a  greater  force  of  utterance,  we  produce  a  third  sound 
called  Y.  In  English,  however,  and  in  the  languages  of  most 
nations  in  whom  the  lips  have  little  development,  this  sound 
is  not  produced,  like  W,  between  the  lips,  but  between  the 
lower  lip  and  the  upper  teeth.  Yet  with  some  practice,  V 
can  be  obtained  between  the  lips.  And  one  or  two  remark- 
able features  in  Greek  and  Sanscrit,  which  I  have  no  room 
here  to  notice,  are  indications  that  such  was  anciently  the 
mode  of  its  formation  among  the  populations  which  spoke 
those  languages.  Full-lipped  nations  still  incline  to  pro- 
nounce it  thus  :  witness  the  substitution  of  B  for  V  in  our 
American  negroes  :  as  also  the  occasional  approximation  to 
such  pronunciation  in  white  persons  with  an  unusual  de- 
velopment of  the  lips, — this  last  chiefly  in  childhood  and 
youth.  The  Spanish  lower  lip  is  uncommonly  full ;  and  in 
most  parts  of  Spain  V  is  formed  between  the  lips,  and  is 
hardly  distinguishable  from  B.  It  is  even  said  that  such  is  the 
genuine  and  ancient  Spanish  pronunciation  ;  and  that 
the  other  sound  is  an  innovation  from  the  French. 


285 

And  I  appeal  to  the  analogy  which  other  orders  of 
consonantal  formation,  as  of  MH  from  U  (oo),  and  of 
GH  and  NH  from  I  (ee),  (formations  which  I  cannot  here 
stop  to  explain),  as  showing  that  the  general  rule  is  to  form 
the  consonants  with  the  very  organs  from  which  the  vowel 
whence  they  are  derived  respectively  receives  its  finishing 
touch.  Nor  is  there  any  more  difference  between  V  formed 
between  the  lips,  and  formed  between  the  lower  lip  and 
upper  teeth,  than  between  the  English  D  formed  between 
the  tip  of  the  tongue  and  the  roof  of  the  mouth,  and  the 
Spanish  D,  formed,  as  it  is,  between  the  tip  of  the  tongue 
and  the  top  of  the  upper  teeth. 

Let  us  now  suppress  vocality  in  V:  let  the  organs  be  still 
more  constrained,  and  let  a  little  more  force  of  utterance  be 
developed.  We  produce  a  fourth  sound,  F.  This  may,  like 
V,  be  produced  between  the  lips. 

In  comparing  V  with  F  we  find,  beside  the  difference  with 
regard  to  constraint  and  f orcibleness — a  difference  which  ob- 
tained between  U  and  W  as  well — a  third  distinction.  V  is 
vocal.  F  is  non-vocal.  Evidently,  however,  if  we  pair  them 
off,  U  and  W  must  go  by  themselves,  as  resembling  each 
other  extremely  with  regard  to  comparative  openness  and 
freedom ;  and  V  and  F  must  go  together,  as  developing  in 
common  a  distinctive  degree  of  force  and  of  constraint. 
Hence  we  shall  make  a  class  of  U  and  W,  which,  because 
they  are  both  vocal,  we  shall  call  the  Vowel  class.  And  of 
V  and  F,  which  require  a  certain  strongly  perceptible  out- 
breathing,  we  shall  make  a  second  class,  to  be  called  the 
Aspirate. 

We  come  now  to  a  third  class  of  derivations  which  are 
distinguished  between  themselves  by  the  same  marks  as 
were  the  members  of  each  of  the  above  classes  ;  but  which, 
as  a  class,  are  farther  distinguished  by  entirely  new 
characteristics. 

Constrain   the   lips   still   farther,  until   they   are   wholly 


286 

•closed;  and  into  the  confined  chamber  of  the  mouth  and 
throat  admit  a  vocality  which  is  necessarily  smothered.  This 
begins  B.  Let  us  observe  that  if  the  lips  be  not  immediately 
opened,  this  muttering  sound  is  producible  for  some  mo- 
ments ;  but  gradually  the  air  in  the  mouth  becomes  com- 
pressed, until  either  exit  is  opened  through  the  nostrils,  or 
•else  vocality  is  perforce  suppressed  entirely:  this  takes 
place  exactly  as  when  a  boy  tries  to  speak  into  a  foot-ball, 
or  into  a  bladder  already  distended  with  air,  with  his  lips 
closely  fitted  to  the  only  aperture.  In  order,  then,  to  form 
this  indistinct  noise  into  a  genuine  articulate  sound,  it  is 
necessary  to  open  the  lips.  The  explosion  which  takes 
place  on  opening  them  produces  B,  which  is  fifth  in  order 
of  derivation. 

Now  let  the  partial  and  smothered  vocality  which  obtains 
in  B  be  suppressed :  let  us  cause  a  still  further  and  more 
determined  constriction  of  the  lips ;  and  let  a  still  greater 
degree  of  force  be  employed  in  exploding  the  consonant. 
We  produce  an  "ultimate"  or  derivation  sixth  in  order, 
called  P. 

The  characteristics  which  distinguish  B  and  P  from  all  the 
preceding  formations  are  the  utter  and  entire  constraint  and 
even  closing  of  the  organs.  The  removal  of  that  constraint 
afterwards  aids  in  characterizing  them :  it  is  not,  however, 
the  ensuing  state  of  liberty  and  openness  that  gives  them 
character,  but  the  change  from  restraint  to  liberty ;  the  basis 
being  restraint  and  fixedness.  Since  they  differ  so  decidedly 
from  the  others,  we  shall  make  of  them  a  third  class,  calling 
it  the  consonantal.  We  shall  call  them  this,  because,  though 
three  of  the  four  others  are  consonantal,  the  two  last  are 
especially,  thoroughly  and  purely  consonantal.  Observe  that 
the  relation  between  its  two  members,  is  precisely  that 
which  exists  between  the  members  of  the  second  or  Aspirate 
class.  I  refer  to  the  fact  that  V,  the  first  of  the  aspirate 
class,  and  B,  the  first  of  the  consonantal  class,  are  both 
vocal ;  i.  e.,  each  has  either  a  clear  tone  (as  distinguished 


287 

from  a  whisper),  or  else  a  mumbled  tone  or  rumble ;  but  F, 
the  second  of  the  aspirate  class,  and  P,  the  second  of  the 
consonantal  class,  have  neither  of  them  a  tone  or  rumble. 
Whatever  tone  or  rumble  or  vocality  whatsoever  may  precede 
or  follow  them,  belongs,  not  to  them,  but  to  some  vowel  pre- 
ceding them  or  following  them.  We  can,  therefore,  allege 
that  this  consonantal  class  repeats  the  Aspirate  class  exactly ; 
"but,  so  to  speak,  in  a  frozen  form.  V  and  F  flow  or  run,  so 
to  speak ;  but  B  and  P  must  be  snapped  off;  they  are  shaped 
as  if  they  were  solids. 

We  began  with  U,  and  found  it  naked,  free,  and  compara- 
tively without  limitation.  We  end  with  P,  and  find  it 
moulded,  clothed,  solidified,  as  it  were.  And  we  derived 
the  latter  from  the  former  by  steps  quite  regular,  and  at 
each  step  we  gained  a  distinct  sound.  And  since  the  un- 
clothed and  unmodified  is  "prior,"  and  clothing  and  modifica- 
tion is  subsequent,  we  have  recognized  the  vowel  as  prior, 
the  succeeding  derivations  as  ultimations,  and  the  last  as 
ultimates. 

A  close  vowel  may  be  gradually  ultimated  into  consonants 
by  a  process  precisely  analogous.  Take  the  vowel  I,  that  is, 
the  sound  which  this  letter  represents  in  every  language  but 
the  English,  and  ^which  in  English  may  be  represented  by 
EE.  It  is  only  necessary  to  substitute  the  back  of  the 
tongue  and  the  palate  in  place  of  the  lips.  This  series  illus- 
trates the  rule  even  more  fully  than  that  just  given.  Only  it 
is  necessary  to  be  acquainted  with  two  sounds  of  which 
English  is  destitute.  From  I  (ee)  form  Y,  exactly  as  W  from 
U ;  from  Y  form  GH  (a  vocal  guttural  such  as  is  G  in  the 
German  Wagen,  as  pronounced  in  certain  dialects),  as  V 
(between  the  lips)  was  formed  from  W:  from  GH  form  KH 
(a  non- vocal  guttural  like  CH  in  the  German  noch,  as  F  was 
formed  from  V :  from  KH  form  G  (hard  as  in  go),  like  B 
from  F ;  and  finally  from  G  form  K,  like  P  from  B.  The  differ- 
ences between  the  members  of  this  series  and  between  those 


288 

of  the  former,  are  precisely  the  same :  they  are  divisible  into 
the  same  classes  as  before ;  and  the  characteristics  of  each 
class  are  the  same. 

These  derivations  might  be  confirmed  at  length  by  philo- 
logical illustrations ;  but  it  seems  unnecessary.  With  regard 
to  other  sounds,  whether  in  English,  or,  as  far  as  I  have  been 
able  to  examine,  in  other  languages,  they  may  all  be  brought 
into  such  general  series.  The  only  links  which  appear  ob- 
scure or  missing  are  the  first  and  second  of  those  series 
whose  ultimates  are  respectively,  T,  R,  and  L  ;  in  each  of 
these  three  series  I  can  find  only  the  four  latter  derivations. 

If  the  above  formations  be  carefully  and  experimentally 
examined  and  compared  in  their  variations  and  relations,  they 
will  be  found  to  exhibit  most  concise  and  accurate  illustra- 
tions and  images  and  correspondences  of  several  truths  relat- 
ing to  man's  spiritual  nature. 

First.  That  Sound  corresponds  to  the  will  or  affections, 
and  Articulation  to  the  understanding  or  thought. 

The  first  utterances  of  children  are  chiefly  vowels  or  un- 
modified sounds,  rather  than  consonants  or  articulations. 
For  will  or  affection  of  some  kind  is  present  with  infants, 
but  not  understanding  or  reflection ;  moreover,  the  muscles 
necessary  for  the  production  of  the  more  solid  articulations 
have  not  yet  received  training.  As  yet  there  is  no  intellect 
by  whose  operations  they  might  devise  modes  of  determin- 
ing sounds  into  various  articulations  intended  to  express 
ideas  of  thought ;  nor  have  they  any  thoughts  to  express ; 
nor  do  they  need  to  use  the  voice-muscles  employed  in  the 
more  solid  articulations.  And  with  them  the  knowledge 
of  language  insinuated  from  without  is  not  acquired  till 
afterward.  For  the  same  reason  the  utterances  of  beasts 
are  sonorous  or  vowel-like,  and  are  generally  like  the  opener 
vowels,  but  are  not  articulate.  An  articulating  power  has 
not  been  evolved,  because  beasts,  although  they  have  affec- 
tions, are  destitute  of  abstract  thought.  Birds,  too,  use  the 


289 

vowels,  because  they  do  not  think  as  men  do  ;  yet  since  the 
correspondence  of  their  vital  principle  is  with  what  is  intel- 
lectual rather  than  with  what  is  voluntary  in  man,  their 
evolution  was  such  that  the  sounds  they  employ  belong  to 
the  close  rather  than  the  open  vowels ;  that  is,  to  the  vowels  I 
(ee),  E  (ay),  and  A  flat,  and  not  to  U,  O,  and  A  open.  For  al- 
though, the  vowels  in  general,  as  compared  with  the  con- 
sonants, relate  to  the  will,  yet  the  open  vowels  do  this  more 
than  do  the  close  ones ;  and  the  close  ones  relate  more  to  the 
understanding  than  do  the  open  ones.  This  is  just  as 
with  the  human  sexes,  in  which  the  male  is  characterized 
by  intellect,  and  the  female  by  affection ;  yet  still  the  male 
is  possessed  of  affection  also,  and  the  female  is  possessed 
of  intellect  also.  There  are  some  birds  that  are  able  to 
imitate  articulate  sounds,  and  thus  produce  a  kind  of  speech 
composed  of  words  which  are  indeed  representatives  of 
thought,  although  with  the  birds  these  are  only  mechan- 
ical productions;  the  birds  having  no  knowledge  of  such 
representation,  nor  does  any  accompanying  and  corres- 
ponding mental  form  or  idea  exist  with  them.  Hence  merely 
sensuous  men,  whose  minds  are  stored  with  images  derived 
from  sense  and  the  outer  world,  but  whose  inner  being  is 
destitute  of  the  spiritual  and  heavenly  things  to  which 
earthly  objects  variously  correspond  and  which  they  repre- 
sent, are  compared  to  such  birds,  and  such  birds  are  their 
correspondences.  Several  kinds  of  birds  are  able  to  execute 
this  mimicry,  but  I  think  no  beasts ;  for  birds  correspond  to 
what  is  intellectual,  but  beasts  to  what  is  voluntary ;  and  the 
intellectual  is  able  to  separate  itself  from  the  essential  nature, 
and  apply  itself  to  any  point,  and  receive  impressions  thence, 
however  foreign  to  that  nature  they  may  be ;  but  the  will  is 
not  so  able.  Ravens,  on  account  of  their  color,  correspond 
to  men  who  are  plunged  in  fallacies  of  the  senses ;  but  to 
such  ravens  as  have  had  the  tongue  split,  and  thus  have  been 
enabled  to  talk,  may  be  compared  those  men  who  are  carried 
away  by  these  fallacies,  yet  still  speak  piously  about  the 


290 

truths  of  the  church,  though  in  heart  they  arc  wholly  ignorant, 
being  hypocrites  and  double-tongued.  These  human  crows 
are  also  fond  of  gathering  up  and  hoarding  away  in  the  mem- 
ory such  expressions  of  fact  as  they  may  find  or  steal;  but  with- 
out a  wish  to  employ  them  in  any  useful  way.  They  value  a 
trinket  as  highly  as  a  serviceable  article ;  and  a  bit  of  tin  they 
consider  as  good  as  silver,  provided  only  it  be  bright  and  shin- 
ing, and  that  it  readily  attract  attention.  There  are  many 
such  rookeries,  especially  in  the  theological  world ;  and  they 
give  out  much  clamor,  and  display  a  great  deal  of  vanity,  and 
make  a  show  of  being  very  busy. 

For  the  above  reason,  interjections  for  the  most  part 
are  vowels ;  especially  are  those  which  are  common  to 
many  languages,  and  whose  origin  is  innate  and  not  artificial ; 
that  is,  which  are  not  contracted  from  artificial  language.  For 
interjections  mostly  express  impulse  rather  than  thought ; 
hence,  too,  they  are  generally  open  vowels.  On  the  same 
account, vowels  abound  in  the  languages  of  southern  countries; 
thus  the  harsh  names  of  Gothic  invaders  were  mellowed  in 
Italy,  Spain  and  France ;  but  northern  tongues  tend  more 
to  consonantal  development.  Heat  in  the  natural  world  cor- 
responds to  affection  or  impulse  in  the  mental  or  spiritual ; 
consequently  southern  nations  are  more  impulsive,  while 
northern  ones  are  more  intellectual ;  or,  as  we  say,  cooler. 
Not  that  natural  heat  produces  spiritual  warmth  ;  but  since 
the  body  corresponds  to  the  mind,  the  influence  of  heat  upon 
the  former  produces  a  state  of  recipiency  as  regards  what- 
ever spiritually  corresponds.  Exactly  as  in  a  windmill,  where 
indeed  the  motive  force  is  constant  and  invisible,  but  where 
the  arms  move  either  in  one  direction  or  the  opposite,  alto- 
gether dependently  upon  the  direction  in  which  the  fans 
themselves  are  braced.  Since  it  is  constantly  observed  that 
natural  causes  seem  to  modify  or  even  to  produce  what  in 
itself  is  spiritual,  it  is  often  believed  that  the  spiritual  is  de- 
rived from  the  natural ;  whereas  the  truth  is,  that  nature 
•operates  only  upon  nature  ;  but  when  the  natural  substance 


291 

which  is  operated  upon  is  living  (as  we  say),  that  is,  is  such 
in  form  as  that  what  is  spiritual  is  able  to  be  with  it  and  to  be 
united  with  it,  then  any  change  in  its  form  has  one  of  two  re- 
sults :  either  the  new  form  is  such  that  it  is  prepared  to  re- 
ceive, and  thereby  does  receive,  something  analogous  which 
is  spiritual — in  which  case  it  continues  ali ve ;  or  else  it  is  now 
unfit  in  form  for  the  reception  of  what  is  spiritual, — in  other 
words,  it  dies.  In  every  case  the  origin  of  life  is  spiritual, 
although  the  mode  of  its  manifestation  and  effect  in  matter 
will  always  depend  upon  the  quality  and  arrangement  of 
that  matter. 

Second.  That  the  Will  is  the  essence  and  substance,  and 
the  Understanding  is  the  Will's  form  and  development : — 

Taking  vowels,  or  sounds  more  purely  vocal,  as  correspond- 
ing to  the  will,  and  taking  consonants  or  articulations  as  cor- 
responding to  the  understanding,  the  process  of  development 
of  affection  into  thought  is  illustrated  by  the  gradual  deriva- 
tion of  consonants  from  vowels.  That  development  takes 
place  through  the  introduction  of  various  affections  of  the 
consciousness  into  different  mental  forms,  that  is,  into  ideas 
originally  copied  into  the  mind  from  the  outer  world  but 
subsequently  often  modified.  Such  development  of  the  will 
into  the  understanding  takes  place  through  a  delimitation 
and  distinction  of  those  various  affections  which  before  were 
united  in  an  indistinct  and  general  whole ;  and  the  delimita- 
tion and  distinction  of  the  matters  belonging  to  the  will 
are  brought  about  by  means  of  discriminating  them ;  and 
this  discriminating  of  them  becomes* possible  as  far  as  the 
ideas  or  mental  pictures  in  which  they  are  now  enclosed  are 
discriminate.  This  process  is  similar  to  that  in  human  utter- 
ance, by  which  the  effluent  vocal  or  vowel  takes  modifica- 
tions upon  itself,  according  to  the  forms  into  which  the 
organs  of  the  voice  receive  it. 

Third.  That  the  mind  is  divided  into  three  regions, 
called  celestial,  spiritual,  and  natural :  and  that  these  bear 


292 

among  themselves  the  relations  of  first  cause  or  end,  middle 
cause  or  means,  and  effect  or  act : — 

We  arranged  the  whole  series  into  classes  ;  namely  U  and 
W,  in  the  first  or  vowel  class  ;  V  and  F,  in  the  second  or  aspi- 
rate ;  and  B  and  P,  in  the  ultimate  or  thoroughly  consonantal 
class.  We  found  each  class  naturally  distinct  from  the  others, 
and  possessed  of  different  characteristics.  We  found  also  that 
the  essential  or  primary  in  the  series  lay  in  the  first  class ;  and 
that  the  essential  or  primary  resulted  at  last  in  the  ultimate 
consonants  of  the  third  class.  But  this  took  place  by  de- 
grees, and  intermediately  through  the  second  class  V  and  F ; 
that  is,  through  the  aspirates.  Moreover,  if  we  enter  into  a 
minute  examination  of  B  and  F,  we  shall  find  that  the  same 
aspirate  quality  is  present  in  these  consonants,  and  really 
accomplishes  their  formation.  This  aspiration  consists  in 
the  rapid  motion  of  the  breath  through  a  narrow  opening 
in  pronouncing  V  and  F.  This  same  motion  occurs  in  B 
and  P,  at  the  very  instant  that  the  lips  are  released,  while 
yet  they  are  scarcely  parted.  It  is  at  this  instant  that  they 
acquire  their  consonantal  character  ;  not  before  this,  because, 
till  then,  pronunciation  was  impossible ;  and  not  after  this, 
because  what  follows  is  simply  vocal.  In  English  this  pre- 
cipitate aspiration,  equivalent  to  an  explosion,  is  not  very 
distinctly  audible.  The  French  explode  the  consonants 
forcibly ;  and  the  more  southern  Latin  tongues  explode 
them  into  a  vocal. 

The  aspirate  function,  then,  acts  as  middle  cause  or  means. 

Fourth.  That  each  of  these  mental  regions  is  made  up 
of  two  parts  ;  one  of  which  relates  to  the  will,  and  the  other 
to  the  understanding : — 

Beginning  with  the  vowel  class,  corresponding  to  the  celes- 
tial region,  we  find  U  (oo),  which  answers  to  the  will  in  that 
region,  to  be  characterized  by  softness,  freedom,  and  openness. 
But  in  W,  which  corresponds  to  the  understanding,  we  find 
a  degree  of  moulding  or  restraint.  There  is  no  harshness 
however,  such  as  exists  in  the  corresponding  sounds  of  the 


293 

other  classes  ;  for  in  the  celestial  region  the  gentleness  of  the 
will  pervades  even  the  understanding.  In  the  second  or  as- 
pirate class,  corresponding  to  the  spiritual  region,  we  find  V, 
which  answers  to  the  will  in  that  region,  soft,  free  and  open : 
not  indeed  in  comparison  with  the  members  of  the  first 
class,  but  decidedly  so,  when  compared  with  F.  For  this 
last  sound,  as  corresponding  to  the  intellectual  faculty  of  the 
same  region,  is  characterized  by  the  opposite  qualities ;  viz. , 
hardness,  constriction  and  closeness.  In  the  third  or  con- 
sonantal class,  we  find  the  same  kind  of  relation  between  B 
and  P ;  the  former  relating  to  the  will,  and  the  latter  to  the 
understanding,  of  the  natural  degree. 

Let  us  in  the  first  class  observe  particularly  that  even  the 
derived  form  (W),  answering  to  the  understanding  of  the  ce- 
lestial mind,  partakes  of  the  vocality  of  the  vowel  whence  it 
is  derived.  It  is  thus  with  celestial  truth ;  which  can  hardly 
be  represented  to  planes  below  the  celestial,  as  other  than 
affection  itself.  Indeed,  celestial  affection  is  celestial  truth, 
when  such  truth  is  considered  as  bearing,  not  inwardly,  or 
towards  its  origin,  but  as  bearing  outwardly,  or  towards  its 
effect  and  application.  So  that  if  the  first  great  command- 
ment of  love  to  God  is  the  essence  of  celestial  good,  then 
the  second  commandment  of  love  to  the  neighbor  is  the  sub- 
stance of  celestial  truth ;  and  the  second  is  the  outward 
bearing  and  application  of  the  first. 

But  in  the  second  class,  corresponding  to  the  spiritual  de- 
gree, vocality  or  sonorousness  exists  in  only  the  former  of  the 
pan*  (V),  it  being  quite  extinguished  with  the  latter  (F).  And 
so  too  in  the  third  class,  corresponding  to  the  natural  region 
of  the  mind,  B  is,  to  a  certain  extent,  sonorous  ;  P  is  not  in 
the  least  so.  There  is  an  analogous  difference  between  the 
will  and  the  mere  understanding,  whether  spiritual  or  natu- 
ral :  the  understanding  in  both  these  degrees  is  not  infilled 
with  love  as  in  the  celestial  mind,  but  consists  of  only  form 
and  figure,  and  also  the  form  and  figure  are  harsher  than 
when  love  afterwards  enters  in  and  softens  them. 


294 

Observe,  too,  the  kind  of  sonorousness  by  which  B  is  char- 
acterized. It  is  not  clear  and  open  like  V,  still  less  like  U  ; 
but  is  half-smothered  until  the  consonant  is  exploded.  Here 
the  correspondence  is  with  merely  natural  affection  or  desire, 
which  is  blind,  limited,  dumb  as  in  the  brute  kingdom  which 
corresponds  to  that  affection. 

Taking  vocality  and  supereminent  softness  as  expressive 
of  the  voluntary  nature,  we  find  that  the  first  class  (U  and  W) 
image  Love,  or  the  celestial  degree.  Taking  aspiration  and 
mouldedness  as  correspondences  of  the  intellectual  nature, 
we  find  the  second  class  (V  and  F)  imaging  the  intellectual 
or  spiritual  degree.  And  taking  solidity,  fixedness,  weight 
and  power,  as  correspondences  of  ultimate  act  or  effect,  we 
find  the  consonantal  class  (B  and  P)  representing  the  ulti- 
mate or  natural  degree. 

If  we  consider  the  will  and  understanding  of  each  degree 
as  being  married  pairs  in  the  mind,  and  if  we  pair  the  corres- 
ponding sounds,  we  shall  have  an  image  of  the  ascent  from 
degree  to  degree,  as  it  takes  place  in  regeneration.  Beginning 
with  B,  as  corresponding  to  the  natural  will  and  its  desires, 
and  with  P,  as  corresponding  to  the  natural  understanding 
and  its  sciences,  we  open  the  sound  of  P  by  relaxing  the 
organs  of  speech  in  order  to  permit  a  freer  path  for  the  vocal. 
In  opening  the  sound  of  P,  we  produce  F.  Now  admit  sonor- 
ousness into  F,  and  also  soften  it  slightly ;  thereby  we  pro- 
duce V.  Similar  to  this  process  is  the  ascent  from  the  natural 
to  the  spiritual  degree.  The  natural  thought  and  reflection  are 
first  opened  so  as  to  assume  spiritual  forms,  that  is,  ideas  of 
spiritual  truth :  this  is  the  primary  step,  and  evolves  the  spirit- 
ual understanding.  If,  afterward,  the  spiritual  ideas  or  forms 
of  thought  receive  into  themselves,  as  into  moulds  and  vessels, 
the  spiritual  loves  of  which  they  are  the  due  and  proper  shapes 
and  expression  ;  if,  in  other  words,  truth  is  inspired  with  good, 
and  faith  is  insouled  with  charity,  then  from  the  outmost  form 
of  the  spiritual  understanding,  from  its  very  shell,  from  the  rib 
of  the  man.  a  bride  and  wife  is  formed  for  it,  which  new  for- 


295 

mation,  thus  vivified  by  charity,  combines  in  itself  both  will 
and  understanding,  together  "  with  a  perception  of  all  the 
good  of  love  and  truth  of  faith,  and  the  consequent  posses- 
sion of  wisdom  and  intelligence  conjoined."  If  any  one  will 
take  the  trouble  carefully  to  examine  the  formation  of  these 
sounds,  he  will  find  these  things  so  clearly,  though  instantly, 
expressed  in  them,  that  no  written  language  could  express 
them  more  exactly.  He  will  find  them  so  expressed  in  the 
opening  of  P  into  F;  in  the  appropriation  of  the  outer 
form,  or,  so  to  speak,  the  shell  of  F,  as  the  continent  of  a 
new  formation ;  in  the  subsequent  softening  and  vocalization 
of  that  outer  form ;  and  in  the  ensuing  combination  and 
union  of  the  form  of  F  and  the  vocal  of  V ;  which  union 
obtains  in  the  latter.  Let  me  try  to  illustrate  this  point 
by  an  example  which  may  seem  a  far-fetched  one.  In 
French,  sage  means  wise  ;  but  when  applied  to  a  child, — 
since  children  are  less  able  than  are  grown  persons  to 
separate  the  will  and  understanding,  or,  in  other  words,  to 
know,  but  to  act  against  knowledge, — then  it  means  not 
barely  wise  but  good.  It  is  wisdom  of  this  quality,  but  of 
higher  degree,  i.  e.,  the  wisdom  of  life,  that  in  this  use 
is  properly  understood  by  the  word  sage. 

The  sound  of  V  resembles  that  of  W ;  so  much  that  the 
common  people,  though  more  in  England  than  in  the  United 
States,  employ  them  interchangeably.  Words  which  in 
English  contain  the  sound  of  W,  are  generally  found  in 
German  pronounced  much  as  with  a  V,  though  spelled  with 
W.  With  GH  and  Y,  of  the  other  series,  the  case  is 
much  the  same.  Words  beginning  with  G,  which  in  Hol- 
land are  often  pronounced  with  the  GH  aspiration,  are  in 
some  German  dialects  sounded  as  Y,  though  spelled  with  G. 
Most  words  in  English,  beginning  with  Y,  were  spelled  in 
Anglo-Saxon  with  G,  and  evidently  were  pronounced  as  GH. 
Like  this  resemblance  between  the  second  of  the  highest 
pair  and  the  first  of  the  middle  pair,  is  that  which  exists  be- 


296 

tween  celestial  truth  and  spiritual  good :  one  essence  per- 
vades both. 

V,  the  former  of  the  second  class,  is  derived  from  W,  the 
latter  of  the  first  class.  But  B,  the  former  of  the  third 
class,  cannot  properly  be  said  to  come  from  F,  the  latter  of 
the  second ;  because,  unlike  F,  it  contains  vocality.  In  other 
language,  spiritual  good  is  essentially  derived  from  celestial 
tiuth:  yet  natural  good  is  not  so  derived  from  spiritual 
truth,  but  from  the  will-principle  of  the  higher  regions, 
which  in  it  becomes  materialized  and  comparatively  obscure. 

The  pair  U  and  W  which  make  the  vowel  class,  present 
in  their  intimate  relations  and  close  resemblance,  an  image 
of  the  celestial  marriage  in  the  mind.  And  doubtless  the 
transition  from  the  aspirate  to  the  vowel  class,  or  from  V  to 
W  and  U,  represents  perfectly  the  ascent  thither  from  the 
spiritual  marriage  in  the  mind.  In  the  aspirate  class,  it  is 
V,  the  former  of  the  pair,  that  combines  the  qualities  of 
both.  In  other  words,  the  conjugal  principle  of  the  spiritual 
degree  lies  with  the  voluntary  of  that  degree ;  that  is,  with 
the  wife ;  for  in  the  spiritual  marriage  the  voluntary  part 
is  the  wife.  But  in  the  celestial  marriage,  properly  speaking, 
the  male  is  the  voluntary7,  and  the  female  the  intellectual 
part.  Hence  in  the  vowel  pair,  we  find  the  latter,  that  is, 
W,  uniting  the  qualities  of  both.  It  would  seem  that  in  the 
celestial  marriage  the  conjugal  still  lies  with  the  wife. 

He  who  is  inclined  to  believe  that  the  formation  of  conso- 
nants, as  described  above,  images  that  of  the  soul,  will  by 
very  many  persons  certainly  be  considered  credulous.  And 
he  who  supposes  that  these  formations  can  therein  be  excep- 
tions to  the  course  of  universal  nature,  or  that  other  depart- 
ments of  science  can  be  either  less  or  more  correspondential, 
than  these  hap-hazard  selections  are  more  or  less  seen  to  be, 
certainly  ought  to  be  considered  credulous.  In  the  belief 
of  all  thinking  beings,  Correspondence  between  Spirit  and 
Matter  applies  to  particulars,  and  to  the  minutest  particulars, 
or  else  does  not  apply  to  generals.  It  exists  everywhere,  or 


297 

it  exists  nowhere.  It  ie  as  unerring  as  the  science  of 
mathematics,  or  else  it  is  a  complete  error.  Two  straight 
lines  are  nowhere  parallel,  unless  they  are  parallel  through- 
out. 


PARSIFAL. 

The  science  of  correspondence,  with  a  thorough  study  of 
the  plot  of  this  opera  and  of  the  legends  on  which  it  is 
based,  brings  its  inner  motives  into  a  clear  light.  Of 
course  in  the  composition  of  the  plot  and  of  the  myths  on 
which  it  is  based,  there  was  no  conscious  application  of  the 
laws  of  correspondence ;  but  these  laws  are  innate  in  every 
man's  inner  nature,  whence  issues  each  effort  toward  expres- 
sion ;  and  they  are  indeed  the  necessary  laws  of  expression. 
The  outer  world  must  furnish  materials  for  constructing  the 
plot ;  but  that  same  inner  nature  (in  which  the  laws  of  cor- 
respondence preside)  governs  the  selection  and  arrangement 
of  those  materials.  In  every  creation  of  fancy  correspond- 
ence may  be  justly  called  the  architect.  But  the  author  of 
the  legend  is  always  more  or  less  unconscious  of  this  law. 
He  works  by  instinct,  though  he  works  according  to  the  laws 
of  correspondence ;  or  at  best  he  has  but  a  most  imperfect 
sense  of  the  laws  by  which  he  works.  And  thus  all  true 
geniuses  are  more  or  less  like  the  bees,  which  build  cells  in 
strict  conformity  with  the  laws  of  geometry,  and  whose  opera- 
tions involve  many  truths  regarding  sines,  versed  sines, 
tangents,  co-tangents,  hypothenuses  and  the  like ;  but  the 
bees  do  not  reflect  upon  or  know  these  truths. 

Let  us  glance  at  the  plot  of  Parsifal. 

The  Holy  Grail,  the  cup  whence  the  wine  of  the  Last 
Supper  was  drunk,  is  every  one's  mental  receptacle  of  the 


298 

Holy ;  his  capacity  for  the  reception  of  Divine  Truths  in  the 
intellect  and  in  practice ;  a  faculty  which,  with  men  (as  they 
run),  is  comparatively  obscure,  or  even  is  quite  hidden  from 
their  every-day  external  sphere  of  thought.  The  unveiling 
of  the  Grail  in  its  shrine,  from  time  to  time,  is  the  occa- 
sional dawning  of  this  faculty  into  consciousness,  and  then 
the  Grail  is  said  to  shine  and  glow ;  and  the  sight,  i.  e., 
the  perception,  of  it  inwardly,  gives  strength  and  delight ; 
and  thereupon  are  eaten  as  it  were  the  bread  and  wine  of 
the  Holy  Supper ;  that  is  to  say,  there  is  felt  the  supporting 
influence  of  Divine  Love  in  the  heart,  and  of  Divine  Eeason 
in  the  mind. 

Amfortas  (anima  fortis,  dme  forte,  Bunyan's  Greatheart), 
the  ruler  of  Monsalvat,  is  that  principle  in  man,  from  God, 
which  battles  with  the  Evil,  and  is  wounded  and  worsted  at 
times  by  the  Evil. 

The  castle  of  Monsalvat  (mons  salvationis,  Salvation 
Mount,  or  Hill  of  Spiritual  Health),  is  the  high  fortress  of 
the  soul,  a  "  rock  of  defence,"  the  stronghold  of  all  that  is 
lofty  and  heaven-loving.  It  wras  built  by  Amfortas'  father, 
to  guard  the  Holy  Grail ;  and  in  it,  and  among  its  forests, 
and  by  its  lake,  dwell  all  Knights  of  the  Grail,  i.  e.,  all  true 
warriors  who  fight  the  Evil  which  is  in  themselves  ;  and  there 
in  Monsalvat  they  guard  the  holy  emblems,  and  hold  the 
Love-feast  in  which  the  Heart  feeds  on  the  Good  and  the 
Intellect  drinks  in  the  True.  They  sing  hymns  at  the  feasts 
in  this  Christian  Valhalla.  The  Knights  sing  standing  on 
the  floor,  as  befits  each  "ITnecht"  who  as  yet  are  but  serv- 
ing men ;  and  who,  in  much  which  they  deny  themselves, 
are  not  yet  quite  willing  to  deny  themselves,  and  often  must 
work  against  the  grain ;  therefore  they  as  yet  plod  along  the 
base  and  foundation  of  the  Health-Castle.  Their  song,  the 
harmonious  outworking  (and  thus  expression)  of  spiritual 
affections,  comes  as  yet  from  no  lofty  plane.  A  loftier  source 
whence  these  soul-melodies  float  downward,  is  in  the  mid- 
height  of  the  Hall  where  young  men  are  singing.  These 


299 

young  men  are  the  intellectual  principles  of  the  True ;  they 
have  outgrown  the  state  of  blind  obedience,  and  the  Truth 
has  come  to  "  call  them  friends ;  "  and,  serving  Truth  more 
than  before,  because  serving  it  intelligently,  they  know,  as 
servants  cannot  know,  what  it,  their  Lord,  is  doing  in  this 
their  work.  But  out  of  the  very  dome  streams  the  sound  of 
children's  voices  in  the  hymn.  The  height  from  which  they 
sing  is  the  inmost  heaven  of  the  soul,  where  neither  blind 
obedience  governs,  nor  yet  clear-sighted  intelligence,  but 
Love  itself  which  produces  its  own  intelligence  like  instinct, 
and  through  that  instinct  works  itself  out  into  visible  Con- 
duct. These  lofty  angelic  principles  of  Love  in  the  soul  are 
what  "  always  behold  the  face  of  the  Father ;  "  they  are  the 
same  as  the  "  Elves  of  Light "  who  dwell  in  Gimli,  the  third 
and  highest  heaven  of  our  forefathers. 

Klingsor  is  the  external  sensuous  principle,  misplaced; 
made  ruler  instead  of  subject.  Once  Klingsor  thought  to  be 
a  Knight  of  the  Grail,  but  the  evil  in  him  withheld  him. 
He  turned  utterly  bad ;  became  the  Knights'  foe,  learned 
magic,  and  cozened  the  Knights.  His  magic  is  the  bewitching 
delight  of  the  senses.  The  life  of  sensuous  gratification, 
divorced  from  spirituality,  is  a  mere  wilderness,  wherein  no 
true  manhood  (nay,  no  good  thorough  unperverted  animal-li f  e) 
can  be  found.  But  this  wilderness  is  turned  into  a  seem- 
ing fairy  garden  by  warlock  sleights ;  Klingsor  and  they  whom 
Klingsor  has  enchanted  can  see  nothing  there  but  fairy- 
land. His  magic  has  peopled  it  with  beautiful  maidens,  the 
delights  of  the  five  senses,  and  ever  they  are  seducing  the 
Knights  of  the  Grail.  Amfortas  himself  was  vanquished 
thus,  and  got  thus  the  spear-wound  whereof  he  lies  ill  unto 
death,  while  he  lay  in  unholy  arms. 

Kundry,  who  does  excellent  service  to  the  Knights,  and 
yet  is  now  and  again  spell-bound  by  Klingsor  (and  then 
works  them  mischief),  is  the  natural  unregenerate  affection 
for  a  Higher.  With  a  hearty  love  for  Monsalvat,  she  still 
is  driven  to  evil  deeds  by  Klingsor ;  she  is  unhappy  and  longs 


300 

for  rest.  At  the  end,  when  Klingsor  is  overcome,  she  dies. 
The  part  she  plays  is  most  touching,  and  indeed  sad  be- 
yond expression.  But  inwardly  there  is  no  sadness  ;  for 
the  death  of  Kundry  in  the  hour  of  victory  represents  a 
state  of  quiescence  of  the  merely  natural  principle,  in 
which  state  it  acts,  not  from  itself,  but  in  entire  consonance 
with,  and  dependence  upon,  the  spiritual  principle  ;  and 
this  death  is  not  really  death,  but  is  resurrection  to  a  true 
life. 

Parsifal  is  called  a  fool.  In  ignorance  he  shoots  a  holy 
swan  in  the  Monsalvat  territory.  He  had  grown  up  in  the 
woods  and  he  knows  next  to  nothing.  They  caught  him  in 
the  act,  and  brought  him  into  the  Hall,  and  he  saw  the  Holy 
Grail  brought  out  and  uncovered,  and  he  heard  the  hymn, 
and  saw  them  feast  at  the  Holy  Supper.  They  now  ask  him 
if  he  understands  this  which  he  sees,  and  he  says  no.  They 
declare  he  is  an  utter  fool,  and  they  turn  him  out  at  a  side- 
door  and  send  him  a-tramping. 

What  Parsifal  is,  it  is  not  so  easy  to  say,  as  what  he  is 
not.  Of  the  principle  of  self -derived  Intelligence  he  is  the 
very  opposite.  They  call  him  fool,  and  like  a  fool  he  looks 
and  acts.  He  stands  for  a  certain  rude  and  simple  principle 
in  the  mind,  which  has  innocence  in  it  for  its  essence.  This 
principle  at  first  seems  (and  indeed  is)  stupid  in  all  the  lofty 
themes  of  theology.  Parsifal  kills  the  holy  swan,  in  other 
words  brings  down  in  death  some  rather  gross  and  un- 
spiritual  (yet  natural,  harmless,  and — by  virtue  of  associa- 
tion— holy)  conception  of  religious  dogma.  But,  later,  Par- 
sifal's unconscious  inner  worth  grows  out.  Drawn  by  a 
magic  swan  again,  progressing  on  (and  by)  a  lowly  natural 
plane,  he  advances  against  Klingsor's  enchanted  castle.  In 
Tain  does  Kundry  (spell-bound  by  Klingsor)  strive  to  bland- 
ish him.  He  routs  Klingsor's  knights  ;  he  overcomes  the 
evil  in  its  outward  forms  of  action.  Thereupon  also  sinks 
utterly  away  Klingsor's  tower — the  false  in  the  Intellect  is 
•conquered.  But  now  the  struggle  of  the  regenerating  man 


301 

shifts  from  the  intellectual  to  the  voluntary  region  of  the 
mind.  Instead  of  the  watch-tower,  Parsifal  beholds  a  beau- 
tiful garden,  and  the  bewitching  maidens.  These  maidens 
are  frightened  at  his  appearance.  In  other  words,  it  seems 
to  the  sensuous  part  of  the  regenerating  man  as  if  the  com- 
ing rule  of  the  spiritual  were  about  to  destroy  all  the  delights 
of  sense.  The  maidens  beg  him  not  to  hurt  them.  He  an- 
swers kindly;  and  then  they  grow  merry  (how  perfect  is 
this  symbolism !) ;  and  they  come  to  him  and  caress  him. 
He  repulses  them,  gently  at  first,  then  more  and  more 
roughly.  They  vanish,  and  Kundry  stands  there  alone  and 
tempts  him.  He  is  about  to  yield,  but  all  at  once  he  feels 
in  his  side  a  wound  like  Amf ortas'  wound ;  and  the  scene  of 
the  Holy  Supper  in  the  Hall  of  Monsalvat  comes  before  his 
eyes.  He  throws  off  Kundry.  Klingsor  appears  and  hurls 
at  him  the  same  spear  with  which  the  Saviour's  side  was 
pierced.  But  Parsifal  grasps  it,  and  makes  the  sign  of  the 
cross  ;  Klingsor's  spell  is  suddenly  broken  ;  the  garden 
turns  into  its  reality — a  desert ;  and  the  damsels  become 
withered  flowers. 

In  the  last  act,  Parsifal  re-appears  at  Monsalvat,  and  brings 
back  the  sacred  spear  whose  loss  has  caused  the  misfortunes 
of  Monsalvat.  He  baptizes  Kundry  ;  he  heals  Amfortas 
with  the  point  of  the  sacred  spear  ;  he  is  anointed  King;  he 
opens  once  more  the  shrine  of  the  Holy  Grail ;  and  there- 
upon Kundry  dies. 

How  true  to  life,  in  the  spiritual   sense,    is  all  this  story  ! 


302 
THE  BISHOP  OF  CAELISLE  ON  EVOLUTION. 

In  the  Churchman  of  March  3d,  1883,  is  a  notice  of  a 
lecture  on  Evolution,  by  the  Bishop  of  Carlisle,  delivered  at 
the  Bradford  Church  Institute.  In  a  part  of  the  lecture  he 
is  reported  as  follows : 

"  Darwin  suggested  a  way  in  which  it  might  be  conceivable  that 
this  evolution  came  about.  The  advantage  of  Darwin's  hypothesis 
was,  that  although  it  was  confessedly  wanting  in  facts  by  which  it 
could  be  fully  substantiated,  it  nevertheless  could  be  said  to  be 
suggested  by  experiment  and  observation.  Remarkable  transfor- 
mations could  be  put  in  evidence  as  having  taken  place,  as,  for 
instance,  in  the  breeds  of  pigeons  ;  and  when  the  possibility  of 
change  was  admitted,  there  was  much  in  the  doctrine  of  natural 
selection  to  recommend  it.  But  the  conclusion  to  which  he  [the 
Bishop]  had  been  brought,  after  long  consideration,  was  that  the 
hypothesis  seemed  to  be  entirely  inadequate  to  explain  the  facts  of 
the  case.  He  did  not  deny  that  natural  selection  might  be  a  fact, 
and  an  important  fact,  or  that  selection  in  relation  to  sex  might  be 
another  fact,  and  also  an  important  one  ;  but,  acknowledging  such 
facts  as  these  as  important,  he  could  not  perceive  that  they 
adequately  accounted  for  such  results  as  the  existence  of  man. 
They  seemed  to  him  to  be  at  best  what  might  be  called  modifying 
circumstances  in  the  great  drama  of  evolution  to  which  geology 
bore  witness.  There  was,  so  far  as  he  could  judge,  nothing  in  the 
hypothesis  of  natural  selection  which  could  be  regarded  as  taking 
the  place  of  a  creating  cause,  working  to  a  fixed  form  or  a  pre- 
conceived plan." 

Whatever  be  the  reader's  drift  of  thought,  he  should  be 
gratified  in  finding  such  candor  and  open-mindedness 
toward  a  scientific  doctrine  new  to  most  religionists  and 
essentially  obnoxious  to  the  prevailing  sensuous  views  of 
religion.  I  think  the  Bishop's  opinion  that  Darwin's 
"  hypothesis "  (if  understood  as  excluding  a  personal 
Creator)  seems  inadequate  to  account  for  the  whole 
eventual  human  product  will  be  shared  by  that  little  knot 
of  Christians  who  maintain  the  doctrine  of  evolution 
on  purely  religious  grounds,  as  the  one  invariable 


303 

method  of  creation  pursued  by  Christ  the  Logos,  in  the 
physical  as  well  as  in  the  moral  world  ;  and  as  indeed  the 
only  possible  method  pursuable  by  a  creative  Logos  whose 
very  name  means  Ranging,  Order  and  Law.  For  man's 
body,  and  for  his  merely  natural  and  ordinarily  conscious 
mind,  the  Christian  evolutionist  will  not  deny  an  ape-like 
ancestry.  But  for  the  making  of  the  spiritual  and  immortal 
element  of  man,  his  creed  depicts  an  outflow  of  life  from 
the  Creator  essentially  different  in  degree  from  that  purely 
earthy  vitality  whose  inflow  was  necessary  to  convert 
primeval  clusters  of  inanimate  particles  bound  together 
only  by  chemical  affinities,  into  the  rudest  forms  of  primitive 
life.  By  evolution  indeed,  according  to  his  belief,  the  crea- 
tion of  both  the  spiritual  and  natural  elements  in  man  pro- 
ceeded, and  daily  and  instantly  still  proceeds.  The  respect- 
ive sources  however,  whence  immediately  they  are  evolved, 
are  always  twain,  and  are  utterly  uninterchangeable.  By  no 
possible  arrangement  and  development  of  physical  particles 
can  conscience  and  a  spiritual  faculty  be  evolved  out  of 
physical  substance ;  however  necessary  an  arrangement  and 
development  of  inorganic  substance  may  be,  -in  order  to  fit 
that  substance  to  become  an  organ  for  the  reception  of  any 
degree  of  life  whatever.  Conscience  itself  and  the  man  him- 
self, invisible  and  spiritual,  are  evolvable  only  out  of  spiritual 
and  invisible  substance,  by  fashionings  that  are  the  work  of 
God  and  God  alone.  And  wherever  is  found  a  physical  form 
adapted  through  countless  ages  of  evolution  to  be  the 
physical  counterpart  of  this  spiritual  element,  there  straight- 
way, and  by  virtue  of  the  divine  omnipresence  and  the  conse- 
quent presence  of  the  spiritual,  is  Man  proper  created.  But 
just  as  a  house  shall  be  named  from  the  liver  in  it,  and  not 
he  from  the  house,  so  man  proper  consists  of  man 
spiritual,  and  does  not  consist  of  the  natural  body  which  he 
has  in  common  with  the  ape,  nor  even  of  the  natural  mind 
which  also  he  has  in  common  with  the  ape.  The 
creation  of  true  man  is  the  creation  of  his  spiritual  element 


304 

alone.  The  Darwinists,  on  the  other  hand,  and  the  sensuous 
theologians  of  our  day  upon  the  other,  have  been  waning 
over  terms  only,  to  which  terms  they  give  different  meanings. 
The  Darwinists  are  speaking  of  man  as  physical,  and  they  claim 
for  this  man  an  orderly  physical  origin.  The  theologians, 
in  great  part,  have  been  thinking  of  man  spiritual,  of  man 
invisible,  immortal ;  of  an  element  of  him  with  which  physi- 
cal science  has  no  concern ;  of  an  element  which  takes  not 
its  substance  from  nature,  and  which  therefore  at  dissolution 
cannot  be  given  back  to  nature.  Few  or  none  of  those  Dar- 
winists who  in  heart  believe  that  this  spiritual  and  invisible  and 
immortal  element  exists,  will  assert  that  it  is  inherited  from 
the  ape.  Nor  will  those  Christian  believers  whose  eyes  look 
upward  for  the  origin  and  destiny  of  man's  spiritual  nature, 
refuse  to  look  downward  for  the  origin  and  destiny  of  his 
mortal  part.  The  trouble  is  that  Christians  have  little  belief 
in  the  reality  of  spiritual  substance ;  and  therefore  the  notion 
of  a  spiritual  creation,  apart  from  some  natural  creation  con- 
ceived by  them  to  have  been  effected  at  the  same  instant, 
seems  as  shadowy  and  improbable  as  they  deem  the  notion 
of  spiritual  existence  apart  from  natural  existence.  And 
this,  in  an  age  of  spiritual  blindness,  is  unavoidable  and 
therefore  permissible  in  the  divine  economy ;  even  as  a  belief 
in  the  resurrection  of  the  material  body  has  been  unavoidable 
and  therefore  permissible.  Just  as  men  have  not  been  able 
to  receive  the  truth  that  a  human  soul  lasts  after  death,  un- 
less by  being  allowed  to  think  of  the  body  as  rising  too,  so 
likewise  now  they  cannot  believe  in  the  creation  of  a  human 
soul  unless  a  body  also  were  created,  not  beforehand,  but  at 
that  very  instant.  That  through  numberless  thousand-year 
days  Christ  should  have  been  creating  that  body  ;  that  with 
infinite  foresight  He  should  have  wrought  matter  upward 
toward  it,  by  steps  innumerable,  with  patience  inexhaustible, 
with  aim  unthwartable,  by  might  inconceivable — all  this  is 
as  naught  to  them ;  it  shall  not  be  so,  because  so  they  will 
not  have  it.  The  divine  parables  of  Genesis  they  will  reject, 


305 

unless  they  may  take  them  in  baldest  literalness ;  and  they 
will  not  believe  in  man's  divine  origin  unless  in  imagination 
they  can  see  the  Ancient  of  Days  then  and  there  suddenly 
moulding  into  human  form  a  mass  of  real,  tangible  clay — out 
of  which  clay  if  man  had  not  been  formed,  some  bricks  could 
have  been  manufactured  enduring  unto  this  day. 

But  just  as  in  the  evolutionary  process  of  formation, 
through  merely  chemical  affinities  of  substances  fitted  to  re- 
ceive the  lowest  primitive  forms  of  life,  the  Christian  evolu- 
tionist beholds  a  divine  plan  of  preparation  for  the  outbirth 
of  the  earthly  degree  of  life  ;  so  in  the  evolving  and  ascend- 
ing series  of  vegetable  and  animal  forms,  climbing  upward 
through  natural  selection  and  culminating  in  the  ape,  does  he 
behold  a  divine  plan  of  preparation  of  a  house  for  the  recep- 
tion of  Man  proper,  a  form  of  spiritual  life,  which,  looking 
down  on  its  apish  earthly  tenement,  turns  in  worship  to  its 
Creator,  saying,  "  A  body  hast  thou  prepared  me."  And  just 
as  the  Christian  evolutionist  views  in  the  body's  ape-like 
ancestors  a  mere  clod  of  earth  and  earthy  vitality,  put  to- 
gether by  steps  of  orderly  selection,  into  which  a  spiritual 
form  of  life  was  thereafter  to  be  breathed,  and  in  which  an 
immortal  being  was  thereby  to  be  created,  so  will  he  also 
behold  in  Christ's  whole  maternal  ancestry,  from  the  primeval 
moss  down  to  the  Virgin,  a  series  of  steps  in  the  orderly 
creation  of  a  human  tabernacle  into  which,  not  a  mere  earthy 
vitality  like  that  of  the  moss,  nor  a  spiritual  life  like  that  of 
men,  but  the  Father  of  Spirits  himself,  the  Soul  of  the  uni- 
verse, was  to  be  born  without  human  fatherhood — an  out- 
working into  nature  of  Him  who  from  the  dawn  of  time  had 
sent  mosses  and  fishes  and  beasts,  and  at  last  men,  to  prepare 
His  way  before  Him. 

What  Christian  evolutionists  will  less  approve  in  the 
Bishop's  observations  is  the  failure  to  recognize  natural 
selection  as  itself  a  method  used  by  the  Deity  in  creating. 
For  the  tendency  in  such  observations  is  the  same  as  in 
those  of  the  materialists  who  fail  to  regard  the  daily  process 


306 

of  animate  nature  as  pregnant  with  divine  creative  efflux, 
and  as  being  itself  the  mere  tool  of  the  Creator.  An  un- 
natural  selection  (could  such  be  found  in  the  universe)  is 
what  both  they  and  the  sensuous  theologians  of  this  age  would 
hail  as  an  evidence  of  the  presence  of  Deity.  But  because 
only  natural  selection  can  be  found  in  nature,  and  because 
for  each  step  im  advance  in  species  the  preparation  has  been 
so  thorough  that  no  difficulties  in  making  the  advance  are 
observable,  and  therefore  no  clever  man-like  make-shifts  to 
obviate  them  are  discoverable,  the  materialists  conclude  there 
cannot  be  a  God,  and  the  theologians  conclude  that  He  does 
not  work  in  the  ordinary  processes  of  animated  Nature.  To 
the  laws  of  the  Divine  Wisdom  impressed  upon,  and  as  it 
were  frozen  into,  the  forms  of  inanimate  Nature,  they  shut 
their  eyes  in  the  same  manner.  If  John  falls  from  a  roof 
and  does  not  break  his  neck,  the  theologians  will  call  this 
providential ;  but  in  the  law  of  gravitation  whereby  both 
roof  and  house  stand  fast,  and  John  is  steadied  on  this  spin- 
ning ball,  and  not  whirled  off  into  boundless  Boom — and  by 
which  law  also  at  another  fall  his  neck  shall  be  thoroughly 
broken — in  all  this  some  of  them  see  no  providence  whatever. 
More  Christian -like  views  than  these  will  be  held  by  Chris- 
tians, in  proportion  as,  through  genuine  repentance  from  evils 
of  life,  God  shall  gain  entry  into  their  daily  Conduct.  Then 
His  hand,  exerted  in  symbolic  painting  and  sculpture,  shall 
be  discerned  everywhere  in  Nature.  Not  of  old  alone,  but 
now,  daily,  instantly,  shall  He  be  seen  creating  the  forms  of 
animated  Nature ;  shall  be  seen  creating  always  from  within, 
and  never  by  force  external ;  creating  always  "  with  the  grain/1 
and  as  if  spontaneously ;  suffering  matter  to  move  by  its  na- 
tive forces  as  softly  as  He  moves  men's  wishes ;  silently  creat-  fc 
ing,  with  a  voice  so  still  and  small  that  all  who  know  not  of 
God  shall  swear  the  creature  created  has  made  itself,  so 
easily  and  naturally  has  that  creature  come  about.  "  We 
see  what  we  bring  eyes  to  see."  Truth  shall  spring  out  of 
the  very  earth,  as  soon  as  righteousness  shall  look  down 


307 

from  heaven.  In  that  day  shall  the  deaf  hear  the  words  of 
nature's  book,  and  the  eyes  of  the  blind  shall  be  opened. 
God  has  declared  the  former  things  from  the  beginning,  He 
shewed  them,  He  did  them  suddenly,  and  they  came  to  pass. 
From  this  time,  even  from  this  time,  He  has  shewed  us  new 
things,  even  hidden  things,  and  we  did  not  know  them ;  they 
are  created  NOW,  and  not  from  the  beginning. 


DAEWIN  AND  SWEDENBORG. 

Darwin  places  Swedenborg's  reader  on  a  vantage  ground 
whence  more  clearly  than  from  elsewhere  he  descries  a  full 
and  downright  meaning  in  the  seer.  The  latter's  sayings, 
often  strange,  and  even  by  an  adept  construable  as  metaphor 
alone,  get  suddenly  a  sound  of  sober  and  literal  descriptive- 
ness,  when  heard  in  the  atmosphere  of  Darwin's  science.  The 
types  and  figures  which  the  non-Darwinian  reader  of  Swe- 
denborg  has  to  be  conjuring  up  in  his  mental  world,  in 
order  to  carry  along  and  bear  up  Swedenborg's  thought, 
present  themselves  before  the  Darwinian's  very  eye,  so  to 
speak ;  and  out  of  a  world  supposed  to  be  one  of  type  and 
figure  and  fancy  alone,  they  drop  plump  into  the  world  of 
fact  and  sensuous  experience. 

It  is  with  man's  body  and  with  his  merely  natural  mind, 
and  not  in  the  least  with  his  spiritual  constitution  and  its 
origin,  that  Darwin  has  to  do.  Whatever  were  Darwin's 
belief  as  to  the  latter,  or  whatever  his  non-belief,  let  us 
admit  that  he  has  given  more  food  for  reasonable  thought 
upon  the  former  subjects  than  any  other  man,  or  perhaps 
than  all  men  beside.  If  Swedenborg  complements  Darwin, 
and  fills  with  an  orderly  creation  the  empyrean  which  to 


308 

Darwin  was  blank  and  cheerless,  not  less  truly  does  the 
naturalist,  with  his  longer-accumulated  store  of  science,  sup- 
ply to  Swedenborg's  lofty  tower  a  solid  and  perfectly  adapted 
foundation  of  sensuous  reality,  where  before  was  a  realm  of 
speculation  and  expectancy.  Of  examples  which  I  think 
innumerable,  let  me  here  give  one. 

According  to  the  formerly  prevailing  theory,  the  great 
gulf  that  parts  men  from  beasts  is  in  their  physical  nature. 
From  the  very  first,  says  this  theory,  the  ape  had  his  body, 
and  the  man  had  his ;  and  when  man  came,  a  special  cre- 
ation of  his  body  was  the  means  whereby.  By  Darwin, 
man's  body  and  man's  natural  mind  are  descended  from  some 
ape ;  and  the  Swedenborgian  Darwinist  holds  that  between 
ape  and  man,  the  sole  essential  difference  is  that  the  latter 
carries,  within  the  ape-like  body  and  mind,  an  inward  and 
here  invisible  and  half -unconscious  man  who  survives  the 
outer  ape,  and  then  lives  like  a  man  if  here  he  had  ruled  the 
ape  in  him,  and  like  an  ape  if  here  the  ape  had  ruled  the  man. 
He  believes  that  for  body  to  this  inner  soul  the  ape  was  grad- 
ually evolved  in  creation,  according  to  the  divine  purposes  and 
by  divine  forces,  working  in  and  through  Natural  Selection  ; 
that  into  the  fittest  members  of  anthropoid  tribes,  and 
doubtless  into  the  ovum,  the  germs  of  this  inner  and  upper 
humanity  were  inserted,  as  if  for  a  finite  and  fragmentary 
incarnation ;  that  the  unknown  date  of  this  insertion  is  the 
date  of  man's  creation ;  that  this  true  humanity  makes  one 
with  the  simian  frame  which  simulates  its  shape,  and  that 
varying  by  descent  like  that  frame,  this  true  humanity  is  per- 
petuated like  it  from  generation  to  generation.  To  one  who 
thus  believes,  how  simple  and  un-overstated  seem  these  words 
of  Swedenborg :  "  As  to  man  natural,  man  is  like  to  beast, 
and  life  throughout  he  takes  upon  him  this  image.  That  is 
why  in  the  world  of  spirit  there  are  beasts  of  all  sorts  seen 
around  men,  kind  for  kind ;  and  these  beasts  are  correspon- 
dences ;  for  looked  upon  in  itself  the  natural  side  of  man  is 
sheer  animal.  But  because  a  spiritual  has  been  given  him 


309 

over  and  above  that  animal,  he  can  become  a  man  ;  and  if  with 
that  ability  he  even  does  not  become  one,  he  yet  can  ape  the 
man,  but  still  'tis  a  talking  beast."  (Vera  Chr.  Eel.  566.) 

Betwixt  the  scientists  on  one  hand  and  the  religionists  on 
the  other,  Swedenborg  stands  as  yet  like  Jeremiah's  speckled 
fowl ;  the  latter  peck  at  him,  I  ween,  because  some  spots  in 
him  are  black  or  scientific,  and  the  former  because  in  spots 
he  is  white  and  spiritual.  As  yet,  few  men  of  science  will 
flock  with  him,  because  he  worships  Christ  as  Maker,  and 
holds  the  Word  to  be  divine,  and  the  soul  to  be  undying ; 
and  holds  that  diligent  self-examination  and  practical  re- 
pentance, and  not  mere  intellectual  development,  and  not  an 
unpurified  Benevolence,  are  the  foremost  needs  of  man.  The 
uneducated — and  always  they  are  the  mass  of  the  religion- 
ists— eye  him  a-skant  because  he  interprets  sundry  parts  of 
Scripture  into  only  a  spiritual  meaning,  and  affirms  that  his 
wits  open  inward  on  the  mental  world ;  and  because  they 
find  him  siding  with  the  rationalists,  and  because  they  find 
him  at  one  with  the  Science  which  has  sprung  up  since  his 
time. 

The  outcome  who  can  tell!  Will  the  men  that  believe  in 
another  life  be  forever  denying  the  realities  of  this  world  ? 
and  will  the  men  of  science  be  always  shutting  their  eyes  to 
the  light  which  streams  down  from  above,  and  which  could 
mingle  and  make  one  with  their  own  light  flowing  in  from 
round  about  f  Are  the  outer  senses  doomed  to  stay  never  with 
men  who  preserve  an  inner  sensibili ty  ?  and  must  those  who 
remain  in  possession  of  worldly  intelligence  be  ever  spiritu- 
ally deaf,  blind,  numb  and  bereft  of  true  taste  and  scent  ? 
Are  the  five  foolish  wits  never  to  journey  on  friendly  with 
the  wiser  maidens  ?  Shall  they  never  be  carrying  oil  to  burn 
beyond  the  sure-coming  midnight?  Shall  they  never  be 
willing  to  borrow  beforehand,  whilst  the  channel  of  supply 
still  is  open  from  the  wiser  sisters  ?  and  will  they  be  ever  and 
anon  inverting  viciously  upon  the  sand  those  vessels  of 
priceless  contents  ?  Even  as  a  cat  might  look  at  a  king  do  I 


310 

make  bold  to  gaze  upon  the  mighty  men  of  theology  and  of 
science,  and  even  to  shout  to  them  from  afar  in  turn,  "  O 
Geistliche,  ye  spiritual  folk!  walk  close  beside  them  that  carry 
for  the  world  the  five  lamps  of  the  body ;  since  these  also, 
well-trimmed,  shall  for  some  little  time  help  to  light  up  the 
way !  "  "  O  Scientific  Ones !  choose  now  to  borrow  oil,  whilst 
Choice  is  a-making  in  you,  and  not  later  when  it  is  quite 
made  up.  For  your  store  of  vessels  is  infinite,  and  you  shall 
have  wherewithal  to  burn  to  everlastingness  in  your  own 
good,  huge-wicking  lamps ;  which  lamps  otherwise  shall  after 
death  be  flickering  as  you  begin  to  shake  off  this  world's 
mind,  and  then  shall  go  out  all  at  once,  with  smoke  and  a 
sickening  smell." 


TARKYING  IN  JEEUSALEM. 

(A  LETTER  TO  AN  EDITOR.) 

After  a  very  appreciative  and  friendly  criticism  of  a  re- 
cent book  by  a  Swedenborgian  minister,  the  Independent 
adds  this  warning : 

The  closing  phrase  of  the  above  extract  brings  us  to  that  part  of 
the  work  in  which  it  must  be  considered  most  defective.  *  *  * 
It  is  in  vain  to  hope  for  a  satisfactory  theory  of  the  atonement 
which  does  not  represent  God's  method  of  approaching  men  by 
way  of  sacrifice,  and  which  does  not  look  deeply  enough  into  the 
cross  to  find  there,  in  some  form,  a  substitution  for  the  sinner 
which  becomes  valid  at  the  tribunal  of  justice,  and  efficient  as  a 
positive  agent  for  man's  redemption. 

I  have  no  complaint  against  this  criticism  or  against  the 
author  criticised.  It  was  probably  not  that  author's  aim  to 


311 

set  forth,  under  the  terminology  used  by  the  Independent 
critic,  the  sublime  truths  which  in  all  wise  hearts  underlie 
it.  Rather  the  Divine  footsteps  as  tracks  for  men's  treading, 
than  the  Divine  counsels  as  subjects  for  dissection,  it  seems 
his  purpose  was  to  trace.  I  write  only  to  express  the  opin- 
ion that  in  this  book,  as  in  other  quarters,  are  visible  sundry 
tokens  that  the  teachers  of  the  new  truths  are  not  forever 
to  "  tarry  in  the  city  of  Jerusalem,"  but  that  already  they 
begin  to  be  "  endued  with  power  from  on  high."  At  the 
first,  and  in  one  sense,  Jerusalem  the  Old  shall  be  a  common 
shelter  to  both  New  and  Old.  Both  will  cling  to  Expres- 
sion, and  grapple  to  their  watchwords.  The  truths  that 
underlie  their  dogmas  the  army  of  the  Old  have  mostly 
ceased  to  see,  and  those  same  truths  the  army  of  the  New 
hardly  more  than  begin  to  descry.  "  In  Old  Jerusalem  " — a 
state  external  as  distinguished  from  a  state  internal — the 
Lord  at  first  must  house  them  both.  Nor  in  Him  is  this  un- 
tidy. His  times  are  always  ripe,  because  His  steps  are  slow 
and  because  they  leap  never  a  fathom.  In  Jerusalem  at  first 
the  disciples  must  tarry,  and  in  the  wilderness  at  first  the 
Woman  must  be  in  hiding.  Only  by  degrees  can  He  prepare 
the  pupils  of  His  second  or  spiritual  coming,  and  by  frac- 
tions of  degrees  the  teachers,  and  thus  make  provision  for 
the  spreading  of  the  New  amongst  the  many.  To  tarry 
intellectually  in  that  city,  as  I  understand  it,  is  to  be  tied 
strongly  to  certain  phrasings  of  doctrine,  and  to  be  less  able  to 
extend  their  underlying  truths  to  use  and  application  upon 
the  world-wide  varieties  of  religious  feeling  and  religious 
expression.  In  what  the  endowment  of  "power  from  on 
high  "  must  consist,  can  readily  be  known  when  we  remem- 
ber that,  of  all  on  high,  the  highest  quality  is  that  Divine 
Love  which  seeks  the  good  of  all  men,  and  from  within 
makes  entry  into  all  hearts  and  minds,  with  each  according 
to  its  own  peculiar  liking  and  intelligence  ;  and  in  all  souls 
bends,  as  far  as  it  can,  the  evil  towards  uprightness  and  the 
false  toward  truth.  To  be  endowed  or  clothed  upon  with 


312 

power  from  that  height,  is  to  be  inflamed  with  Divine  affec- 
tion, and  from  thence  to  work  upon  men's  minds  and  hearts 
as  the  Divine  itself  is  wont  to  work, — with  the  grain  always, 
and  against  it  never,  from  within  outwards  and  not  from  out- 
side inwards,  reaching  out  to  them  where  they  are  and  not 
where  they  might,  could,  would  or  should  be.  Certain  signs 
follow  those  clothed  upon  from  aloft.  Whereas  they  are 
genuine  believers,  that  is,  are  believers  in  very  truths  and 
not  in  expressions  alone,  and  hence  can  instill  truths  under 
varying  forms  of  expression ;  they  cast  out  devils  in  the 
Lord's  name,  they  speak  with  new  tongues,  they  take  up  ser- 
pents ;  if  they  drink  any  deadly  thing  it  does  not  hurt  them  ; 
and  if  they  lay  hands  on  the  sick,  the  sick  recover.  In  other 
words,  they  teach  mainly  the  expulsion  of  diabolism  from 
the  heart  and  lif e  by  the  practicing  of  self-examination  and 
repentance,  and  by  reliance  upon  the  Man-God  in  the  strug- 
gles of  the  combat ;  they  make  the  old  dogmas  speak  a  new 
language  ;  they  handle  freely  the  sensuous  images  of  truths 
which  are  dangerous  to  be  touched  by  others ;  they  swallow 
unharmed  the  phrases  which  to  others  would  be  destructive 
of  spiritual  intelligence  ;  and  under  their  teaching  the 
dying  dogmas  of  Christendom  arise  and  stand  in  health.  Un- 
believable as  these  things  may  be,  the  spiritual  sense  of 
Scripture  points  towards  their  coming  about ;  the  signs  of 
the  times  point  thither  also.  Men  with  this  power,  it  seems, 
shall  be  had.  Such  a  one  shall  not  strive  or  cry ;  in  the 
inner  tabernacle  chiefly,  far  from  the  strife  of  tongues,  in  the 
homes  of  hearts,  and  not  in  the  street-brawls  of  dogmatic  con- 
troversy, shall  his  voice  be  heard.  At  the  heart-strings  is  his 
pull ;  his  hand  is  on  the  helm  of  Choice,  where  his  gentle 
touch  is  rnighter  than  all  contortions  of  the  wranglers. 
How,  without  this  power,  shall  the  glad  tidings  be  preached 
abroad  ?  Without  it,  can  the  truths  of  the  New  Jerusalem 
be  aught  to  outsiders  but  the  tedious,  senseless,  fantastic 
narrations  which  hitherto  so  largely  they  have  been  ? 

By  no  means  let  us  scorn  to  "  tarry  at  Jerusalem."     Partly 


313 

in  there  abiding,  and  through  there  abiding,  comes  some 
fitness  to  be  clothed  with  that  lofty  power.  In  the  hard  and 
fast  lines  of  technical  theology  must  be  shaped  to  un- 
yieldingness the  bones  of  belief,  ere  rightly  they  can  be 
covered  with  the  flesh  of  genuine  humanity  and  the  mus- 
cles of  active  usefulness.  The  gospel  indeed  shall  be 
"  preached  among  all  nations ;  "  yet  the  "  beginning  v  is  ever 
"  at  Jerusalem."  "All  nations"  means  all  creeds  and  all 
denominations ;  "  Jerusalem  "  means  sheer  doctrine,  clean- 
cut,  scarped  in  the  rock,  walled  strong  and  high,  barred  oft* 
from  all  without.  Doubtless  as  yet  it  is  best  that  some — 
that  many — tarry  there.  The  Lord  be  thanked  for  the  noble 
garrison  which  makes  no  sally :  of  these,  as  defenders,  there 
shall  more  and  more  be  need  when  less  and  less  they  shall 
be  making  up  the  full  tale  of  the  host.  The  Lord  be 
thanked  yet  more  for  those  that  long  to  be  forth.  Let  them 
only  remember  that  the  gospel  to  be  preached  is  "repent- 
ance and  the  remission  of  sins."  Beautiful  indeed  upon  the 
mountains  shall  be  the  feet  of  the  new  teachers  when 
first  and  foremost  they  shall  teach  repentance ;  repentance 
not  only  in  purpose  and  in  life,  but  also  in  theory  and  belief. 
No  ancient  dogma  shall  be  assaulted  by  them,  but  every  dog- 
ma be  defended.  They  will  remove  the  EVIL  APPLICATION 
which  makes  any  dogma  false,  and  they  will  supply  the  FACTS 
which  make  every  dogma  true.  All  doctrines,  without  change 
of  wording,  they  will  transmute  into  New-Church  doctrines 
by  rightly  interpreting  them.  Then  it  shall  come  to  be  a  true 
word  that  was  spoken  by  Isaiah: — "In  that  day  seven 
women  shall  take  hold  of  one  man,  saying  '  We  will  eat  our 
own  bread  and  wear  our  own  apparel,  only  let  us  be  called 
by  thy  name,  to  take  away  our  reproach/  In  that  day  shall 
the  branch  of  the  Lord  be  beautiful  and  glorious."  The 
seven  women  are  the  many  varieties  of  bent  and  disposition 
in  the  several  Churches.  Their  own  bread  is  that  on  which 
these  diverse  religious  natures  the  most  gladly  feed.  To  the 
High  Churchman,  the  Apostolic  Succession  and  the  music  and 


314 

the  ritual,  are  very  bread,  and  without  them  religion  would 
smack  thin  and  tasteless  to  him.  To  the  Methodist  a  certain 
f ervidity  is  bread,  and  without  it  he  would  peak  and  dwindle 
in  soul.  Their  own  apparel — the  Baptist's  immersion,  the 
Presbyterian's  justification — is  a  peculiar  doctrinal  habili- 
ment of  each  which  are  coats  to  their  backs,  for  whose  lack 
they  would  be  chilled  to  the  heart.  All  these,  their  food  and 
raiment,  they  shall  have  and  keep,  and  more  abundantly.  The 
Man  of  whom  they  shall  lay  hold  is  a  virile  intelligence  of  the 
New-Church  truths ;  and  the  name  by  which  they  shall  de- 
sire to  be  called  is  the  interior  quality  of  that  intelligence. 
To  take  that  name  is  to  receive  some  intelligence  into  their 
respective  dogmas,  and  interpret  dogmas  into  realities  of  life 
and  no  longer  into  technical  theories ;  which  technical  and 
unpractical  interpretations  have  hitherto  been  their  obvious 
"  reproach."  I  say  that  Man's  name  which  they  shall 
take  is  the  interior  quality  of  that  intelligence ;  is  the 
fit  and  true  name  of  him ;  is  the  thing  which  the  name 
merely  stands  for;  is  not  the  name  itself,  the  Lord 
be  thanked, — albeit  the  name  itself  is  what  some  of  us  have 
much  been  desiring.  It  is  thus,  if  I  mistake  not,  that  the 
Lord  will  "  purge  the  blood  of  Jerusalem  by  the  spirit  of 
judgment  and  the  spirit  of  burning. "  Under  his  own  par- 
ticular vine  and  under  his  own  particular  fig-tree  shall  yet 
sit  fearless  many  a  man  for  whom  some  of  us  perhaps  would 
rather  have  grown  some  one  huge  shelter  upon  our  own 
private  acres.  For  in  the  New  Creation,  as  in  all  creation 
visible,  endless  variety  is  the  very  stamp  of  God's  author- 
ship ;  and  each  additional  religious  denomination  in  which 
the  Lord  the  Saviour  shall  be  worshiped,  and  evils  be 
shunned  as  sins  against  Him,  will  be  one  more  jewel  in  Hi» 
crown.  Their  various  doctrines  all  shall  be  true,  in  men 
that  are  true,  when  converted  from  imaginative  expres- 
sions into  absolute  facts,  and  from  technical  theory  into 
actual  practice.  Take,  for  example,  the  popular  doctrines 
the  Atonement,  of  Sacrifice,  of  Substitution ;  which  last  the 


315 

able  critic  of  the  Independent  is  saddened  to  miss  in  the 
book  I  first  referred  to.  All  these  beeome  genuine  New- 
Church  truths  when  infilled  with  REALITY.  The  Atonement 
is  indeed  the  truth  of  truths.  It  is  an  at-one-ment,  a  uniting 
of  God  and  Man ;  in  His  Divine  Manhood  an  infinite  uniting, 
and  a  finite  uniting  in  every  one  that  is  linked  to  Him  in 
soul.  In  the  Lord's  Divine  Manhood,  as  far  as  a  man  wor- 
ships it  and  repents  of  his  sins,  is  that  man's  peace ;  since 
in  such  man  here  and  now — just  as  in  Himself  of  old — 
that  Manhood  "has  made  both  one,  and  broken  down 
the  wall  of  partition  "  between  the  Divine  and  the  human  in 
him,  and  in  itself  "has  made  of  twain  one  new  man,  so 
making  peace."  In  every  one  that  takes  hold  of  this  New 
Manhood  made  of  "  twain  into  one,"  and  by  repentance 
begins  that  process  in  which  the  Lord  effects  a  conjunction 
in  him  between  the  man's  human  and  the  Lord's  Divine, 
these  two  also  become  "  at  one  ;  "  they  are  at-oned  as  the 
vine  and  the  branch  are  at  one,  according  to  the  Lord's  own 
words.  This  at-one-ment  is  not  a  thing  which  is  to  serve 
to  supply  a  supposed  necessity  in  logic  for  the  completion, 
of  a  theoiy  of  salvation.  It  is  the  necessary  and  normal 
method  for  maintaining  an  actual  spiritual  vitality. 
"  Without  me  ye  can  do  nothing,"  is  a  fact  of  spiritual  bot- 
any ;  and  botany  itself,  and  not  the  satisfaction  of  a  judicial 
theory  as  to  the  terms  on  which  branches  should  be  permit- 
ted to  live  and  bear  fruit,  is  what  makes  the  necessity  for 
coupling  men  to  God  their  Stock.  If  they  would  indeed  be- 
lieve that  Christ  is  God  the  Life-giver,  they  should  find  no 
mystery  in  At-one-ment.  It  is  in  order  to  satisfy  actually 
and  not  theoretically  the  principles  of  spiritual  botany, 
and  the  just  requirements  of  God's  actual  law  as  to  branch- 
growing,  that  the  vine  and  the  branch  must  be  at  one, 
because  otherwise  the  Divine  sap  cannot  flow  in,  and  the 
branch  must  wither  and  die.  The  animal  kingdom  furnishes 
a  like  example  of  the  same  just  law  of  the  Deity ;  and  the 
blood  of  Christ  with  which  the  sinner  must  be  washed  ere 


316 

he  can  live,  is  of  course  the  spiritual  life-blood,  the  inward 
impulsive  lif  e-current  which  bathes  every  atom  of  his  spiritual 
organization,  whereby  he  lives  each  moment  from  Christ  the 
Heart.  Make  this  dogma  an  organic  reality  instead  of  a 
judicial  makeshift,  and  it  becomes  a  New-Church  dogma.  In 
like  manner  the  doctrine  of  the  Sacrifice  is  the  truth  of 
truths.  The  ancient  sacrifices  were  but  dumb  shows,  in 
which  the  animal  was  consecrated  to  the  man's  behoof,  and 
died  that  the  man  might  eat  thereof.  The  animal  did  not 
really  change  its  nature  in  consecration ;  nor  was  the  man's 
soul  prospered  by  his  religious  meal.  But  the  true  oblation 
is  a  doing  of  God's  will,  and  in  doing  this  the  animal  nature 
is  more  or  less  sacrificed  to  the  wants  of  the  spiritual  nature, 
and  thereby  the  animal  is  lifted  up  and,  as  it  were,  appro- 
priated, towards  the  substance  of  the  higher  and  truly  human 
principle.  The  Divine  Manhood  of  the  Lord  is  the  only 
thorough-going  and  perfect  sacrifice  of  this  real  kind.  Those 
accept  this  sacrifice,  in  whom  by  His  help  a  like  sacrifice 
of  the  lower  nature  to  His  implanted  spirit  is  gradually  ef- 
fected ;  for  they  "  present  their  bodies  a  living  sacrifice, 
holy,  acceptable  unto  God."  In  like  manner  Substitution 
is  the  truth  of  truths.  In  place  of  earth-and-heaven's  inade- 
quate power  to  resist  the  onslaught  of  evil  inclination  in  the 
world  of  Mind,  the  Lord  the  Saviour  substituted  His  own 
Divine  power ;  and,  receiving  upon  His  earthly  nature 
the  onset  of  temptation,  did  by  His  own  suffering  or 
"  stripes  "  make  possible  our  healing.  As  the  Infinite,  He  re- 
duced to  order  the  hell  universal,  and  wrought  a  general  re- 
demption where,  without  the  substitution  of  infinite  power 
of  resistance,  a  general  captivity  of  souls  must  have  followed. 
So  likewise  man's  acceptance  of  this  Substitute  lies  in  re- 
placing with  the  Lord's  own  Self  and  with  His  Divine  power 
and  influences  in  the  individual  soul,  the  overmatched  strug- 
gles of  self-engendered  enthusiasm  and  self -derived  intelli- 
gence ;  in  laying  hold  of  His  strength  when  striving  with 
temptation,  and  in  using  it  as  if  one's  own,  but  always  ac- 


317 

knowledging  in  heart  that  it  is  purely  the  Lord's.  In  all 
who  do  this,  such  substitution  effects  a  particular  redemption 
which  to  the  general  redemption  is  as  the  unit  to  the  mass, 
and  which  brings  into  order  and  under  domination  the  indi- 
vidual hell  within,  and  by  degrees  removes  that  hell,  and 
slowly  implants  a  little  heaven  in  the  soul.  Now  this  kind  of 
at-one-ment,  this  kind  of  washing,  this  kind  of  sacrifice,  this 
kind  of  substitution,  are  in  some  small  measure  known  experi- 
mentally by  more  than  a  few.  To  construe  them  thus  to 
such  persons,  is  to  make  simple  facts  out  of  doctrines  which 
before  were  mere  theories  and  were  hardly  to  be  known  from 
fancies.  The  New  Truth  will  do  this.  It  has  come  in  order 
that  it  may  redeem  and  save  the  dogmas  of  Christendom, 
and  not  that  it  may  revile  or  destroy  them.  Salvation  for 
them  lies  in  filling  with  solidity  the  outsides  of  dogma,  and 
in  filling  with  substantial  FACTS  their  wording. 


THE  DETAILS   OF   THE  PKOCESS   OF   TRANSITED 
STANTIATION. 

How  greatly  those  err  who  do  not  believe  in  Transubstan- 
tiation,  and  how  greatly  those  err  who  believe  in  it,  and  how 
greatly  those  err  who  neither  believe  nor  disbelieve  in  it, 
is  known  to  all  who  consider  the  known  facts  relating 
to  this  sacrament.  Let  me  recite  them  briefly.  Mere  reci- 
tation will  suffice ;  if  not,  there  is  no  time  for  proof. 

The  ground  of  union  between  the  soul  and  the  body  is  ths 
correspondence  of  the  body  with  the  soul ;  and  this  cor* 
respondence  is  the  means  by  which  the  body  lives.  The  life 
of  the  Lord's  Supper  is  also  from  correspondence.  Bread 
and  wine  are  its  body.  Love  and  wisdom  from  the  Lord  are 


318 

its  soul.  Love  and  wisdom  cannot  exist  in  the  form  of 
bread  and  wine.  Love  and  wisdom  are  of  human  form,  and 
of  no  other  form  whatever.  A  holy  supper,  body  and 
soul,  cannot  come  into  being,  except  as  far  as  the  bread  and 
the  wine,  which  are  its  body,  become  of  a  form  which  is  in 
correspondence  with  its  soul,  that  is,  become  of  the  human 
form.  They  begin  to  take  on  this  form  soon  after  being 
received  into  the  stomach,  for  in  a  little  while  they  pass  into 
the  blood.  The  wine  assumes  this  form  wonderfully  quicker 
than  does  the  bread ;  as  much  quicker,  I  reckon,  as  a  man 
learns  to  express  the  Truth  than  he  learns  to  enact  the  Good. 

When  they  have  passed  into  the  blood,  there  is  a  body  for 
the  supper — or,  if  you  like  it  better,  a  supper  for  the  body — 
all  ready  for  the  soul  of  the  supper ;  or,  if  you  prefer  it,  for 
the  supper  of  the  soul.  For  not  before  this  stage  of  assimi- 
lation has  the  body  begun  to  sup.  Not  whilst  one  merely 
chews  does  he  really  eat. 

A  body  of  the  supper  is  then  ready  for  the  soul  of  the  supper. 
But  there  may  be  no  soul,  or  no  holy  soul,  ready  for  its 
body ;  in  such  case  there  can  be  no  holy  supper.  If  in  the 
soul  of  him  who  eats,  there  are  love  from  the  Lord  and 
truth  from  the  Lord,  these  two  become  the  soul  of  the  food 
which  is  thus  assimilated,  and  become  its  soul  just  as  fast 
as  it  is  assimilated.  It  cannot  be  assimilated,  or  become 
homogeneous  with  the  living  body,  or  become  a  portion  of 
the  living  body,  except  as  far  as  life  enters  into  it ;  and  this 
life  comes  wholly  from  the  soul,  and  not  in  the  least  from 
the  body  ;  and  the  life  in  the  soul  consists  of  love  from  the 
Lord  and  truth  from  the  Lord. 

No  supper  is  supper  until  one  sups.  And  no  one  truly 
sups  until  his  body  interiorly  sups.  The  blood  carries  the 
food  to  every  particle  in  the  body.  To  chew  and  swallow  is 
only  setting  the  table.  But  because  men  did  not  know  this, 
or  did  not  care  to  think  of  it ;  and  because  they  did 
not  know  that  bread  and  wine  correspond  to  love  and 
wisdom,  and  did  not  know  that  the  form  of  love  is  the 


319 

human  form,  and  that  the  form  of  wisdom  is  the  human 
form,  and  that  no  other  form  is  possible  for  either,  it 
followed  of  necessity  that,  if  at  all  they  thought  the  Supper 
to  be  holy,  they  must  think  that  the  priest,  by  a  God-given 
mystical  power,  magnetizes  the  bread  and  the  wine,  and 
that  out  from  his  hands  the  holy  passes  into  these  elements, 
and  that  thenceforth  the  elements  are  soaked  and  tinctured 
with  holiness.  If  any  one  who  reads  this  believes  thus,  I  do 
not  wish  to  shake  his  belief.  Only  let  him  shun  evils  as  sins 
against  God.  The  Lord  stands  at  the  door  and  knocks. 
If  any  man  hear  His  voice  and  open  the  door,  the  Lord  will 
enter  in  and  will  sup  with  him  and  he  with  the  Lord.  To 
shun  evils  as  sins  against  God  is  to  open  the  door.  I  say  that 

repentance  in  outer  and  inner  Act — the  shunning  of  evils 

is  the  opening  of  the  door  toward  the  fountain  of  Life.  If  this 
door  is  open,  it  is  the  Lord,  and  not  the  spirit  of  Judas,  that 
is  in  the  vitality  which  enters  the  assimilating  elements 
and  makes  them  living  portions  of  the  body. 

The  correspondence  which  exists  between  spiritual  things 
and  natural  ones,  lies  between  them  not  as  to  their  forms, 
but  as  to  their  analogous  uses.  Their  analogous  uses  are 
their  correspondence.  The  essential  use  of  divine  love  and 
wisdom  for  the  soul,  is  to  support  the  soul's  life ;  and  because 
bread  and  wine  perform  that  same  use  for  the  body,  and  be- 
cause the  body  performs  for  the  Lord's  kingdom  on  earth 
the  same  use  that  the  soul  performs  for  His  kingdom  in 
heaven,  and  because  the  body  thus  corresponds  to  the  soul, 
therefore  bread  and  wine  correspond  to  divine  love  and  wis- 
dom. But  the  essential  use  of  bread  and  wine  is  not  devel- 
oped until  they  are  actually  assimilated.  And  therefore  the 
correspondence  of  bread  and  wine  with  love  and  wisdom 
(from  which  correspondence  only  comes  the  holiness  of  the 
supper)  essentially  begins  when  they  are  assimilated.  There 
is  also  a  second  use  of  bread  and  wine  which  exists  only  for 
the  sake  of  the  first  use,  and  which  in  itself  is  useless.  This  is 
the  taste  of  them.  For  their  taste  invites  a  man  to  eat,  and 


320 

without  eating  there  is  no  assimilation.  In  love  and  wisdom 
there  is  a  similar  subordinate  use.  As  long  as  they  seem 
distasteful,  they  cannot  be  received  and  finally  assimilated. 
That  view  of  the  Lord's  Supper  which  finds  its  efficacy  and 
holiness  at  the  moment  of  chewing  and  swallowing  it,  or  be- 
fore the  actual  incorporation  and  assimilation  of  it,  cor- 
responds to  the  doctrine  which  makes  religion  to  consist  in 
the  mere  intellectual  reception  of  its  truths,  or  even  in 
the  treasuring  of  its  dogmas.  There  is  a  further  and 
indeed  a  most  remote  use  of  bread  and  wine.  It  is 
the  appearance  of  them  ;  for  this  presents  them  before 
the  eye.  In  love  and  wisdom  there  is  a  similar  use.  Taking- 
cognizance  of  them  as  matters  of  fact  is  precedent  to  a  taste 
for  them.  And  that  view  of  the  Lord's  Supper  which  places  its 
efficacy  in  the  bread  and  wine  themselves,  whilst  they 
still  remain  external  to  the  body,  and  which  places  its  holi- 
ness in  their  having  been  blessed  by  the  priest,  corresponds 
to  the  doctrine  which  makes  religion  to  consist  in 
learning  and  worshipping  its  formulas.  Men  who  hold  this 
doctrine  are  like  heathen  who  mutter  mystic  spells  to  drive 
away  the  fiend  and  to  gain  salvation,  or  who  carry  magic 
amulets  to  call  down  rain.  Whoever  sees  that  the  corre- 
spondence of  everything  lies  in  its  use,  sees  other  holiness 
in  the  Lord's  Supper  than  the  touch  of  man's  hand  can 
bestow. 

I  do  not  propose  here  to  discuss  the  benefit  of  the  cere- 
monials with  which  men  have  seen  fit  to  gird  this  sacrament. 
But  I  venture  to  assert  that  in  an  age  in  which  the  life  of 
the  best  appears  to  be  more  or  less  profane,  it  is  well  if  the 
thought  of  the  Lord's  Supper  can  be  defended  in  some  way 
from  this  sweeping  profanity.  If  it  can  be  defended  only  a 
little,  or  but  for  a  moment,  or  only  in  a  most  external  degree, 
it  is  well.  Yet  whatever  solemnities  be  thrown  around  the 
Supper,  let  it  not  be  forgotten  that  it  is  only  man's  own  un- 
solemnity  that  requires  them.  Let  it  not  be  forgotten  that 
the  Lord's  hands  invisible  do  at  every  meal  time,  at  the 


321 

church  board  or  at  the  family  board,  without  the  slightest 
distinction,  touch  the  bread  and  the  wine  within  the  body 
just  as  they  touch  all  other  food,  and  bless  them  both,  and 
break  and  pour  them  out,  and  with  an  infinite  and  divinely 
tender  care   distribute   them   through  the  blood-vessels  to 
every  tiniest  portion  of  the  body.     That  the  only  magic  in 
the  Supper  is  the  divine  magic  wrought  upon  all  other  food ; 
by  which  magic  the  bread  and  the  wine  are  made  alive  in 
the  body  whilst  life — and  all  life  inwardly  is  love  and  wisdom 
from  the  Lord — enters  them.    That  since  it  is  only  by  assimi- 
lating food  that  life  can  be  preserved,  and  since  food  can 
be  assimilated  only  as  life  enters  it,  and  since  the  life  that 
enters  is  love  and  wisdom  from   the  Lord,  and  since  that 
love  and  that   wisdom   are  His  very  flesh  and  blood,  it  is 
true  that  except  a  man  eat  His  flesh  and  drink  His  blood, 
there  is  most  literally  no  life  in  him.     And  finally  that  the 
bread  and  the  wine,  whilst  they  are  becoming  alive  in   the 
body,  become  a  body  for  love  and  wisdom  which  are  from 
the  Lord  and  are  the  Lord ;  so  that  the  bread  and  the  wine 
of  the  Supper  do  thus  become  the  body  and  blood  of  Christ. 
Since  the  process  of  feeding  is   one  that  goes  on   deep 
within  man,  and  not  really  in   the  mouth,   and  not  at  all 
outside  of  him  ;  and  since  of  feeding  there  are   two   factors, 
the  food  and  the  feeder,  and  since  in  the  Lord's  Supper  the 
food,  both  earthly  and  heavenly,  is  always  the  same,   it   fol- 
lows that  the  meal  will  differ  altogether  as  the  eaters  differ. 
Possibly  there  are  those  whose  daily  meal  is   holy,    and  is 
therefore  the  Lord's.     Surely  there  are  those   whose   most 
religious  supper  is  not  holy,  and  therefore  is  not  the  Lord's, 
and   is  undoubtedly  Iscariot's.      Bread  and  wine   of  the 
soul  are  holy ;  bread  and  wine  of  the  body  are  not  unholy.  Holi- 
ness is  lif  e  holy ;  and  visible  bread  and  wine  become  holy  when 
holy  life  enters  them.     The  touch  of  succession,  Apostolic  or 
unapostolic,  cannot  convey  that  holiness.     Let  a  man  only 
cease  to  muddy  the  Lord's  inflowing  life-stream.     Let  him, 
with  God's  help,  purge  himself  from  the  evil,  and  the  Lord 


322 

will  sup  with  him  constantly.  "  To  what  purpose  is  the 
multitude  of  your  sacrifices,"  He  asks  us  pious  church-goers, 
as  He  asked  the  pious  Hebrews.  "  Bring  no  more  vain  obla- 
tions. The  calling  of  assemblies  I  cannot  away  with.  It  is 
iniquity,  even  the  solemn  meeting.  Your  appointed  feasts 
my  soul  hateth.  They  are  a  trouble  unto  me,  I  am  weary  to 
bear  them.  Your  hands  are  full  of  blood.  Wash  you. 
Make  you  clean.  Put  away  the  evil  of  your  doings  from  be- 
fore mine  eyes. "  It  is  the  Lord  who  makes  the  supper  holy ; 
but  He  can  do  this  only  in  those  who  remove  the  unholy, 
that  is,  who  shun  evils  as  sins  against  Him.  Actual  re- 
pentance hallows  His  supper;  and  if  a  man's  repentance 
were  to  sweep  through  every  nook  and  cranny  of  his  being, 
each  daily  supper  would  be  the  Lord's. 

The  material  elements  of  the  supper  are  the  bread  and  the 
wine,  when  these  are  assimilated  in  the  body.  Into  these 
flow  by  correspondence  love  and  wisdom  from  the  Lord  as 
pure  as  the  actual  quality  of  the  man's  make-up  permits 
him  to  receive.  Does  then  the  taking  of  the  elements  change 
and  better  his  quality  ?  I  do  not  believe  that.  But  since 
bread  and  wine,  when  assimilated  to  the  human  form,  corres- 
pond to  love  and  wisdom,  and  since  the  life  which  enters 
them  whilst  they  are  assimilating  is  inwardly  love  and  wis- 
dom ;  to  partake  worthily  of  the  supper  draws  down  into 
external  consciousness  the  feeling  and  perception  of  the 
Divine  refreshing  and  supporting  love  and  wisdom  which 
before  existed  only  in  those  internal  regions  of  the  mind 
which  lie  above  the  consciousness.  Consciousness,  whilst  we 
are  in  the  body,  is  a  consciousness  of  the  body  and  not  of  the 
spirit.  The  bread  and  the  wine  become  a  part  of  the  body, 
in  which  body  the  mind  is  so  immersed  and  absorbed  that  to 
bring  the  Lord's  love  and  wisdom  forcibly  to  mind,  He  must 
bring  them  to  the  body.  This  last,  through  correspondence, 
the  uses  of  bread  and  wine  in  some  measure  effect.  The 
Lord's  love  and  wisdom  are  the  Lord  Himself.  These  truths, 


323 

with  many  others,  lie  wrapped  up   in  the  perfectly  simple 
and  sufficient  words,  "Do  this  in  remembrance  of  me." 

Yet  few  can  see  that  in  the  fit  partaker  of  the  bread  and 
wine,  these  creatures  do  indeed  become  Christ's  Body  and 
Blood.  The  reason  is  that  few  believe  that  Christ  is  Jeho- 
vah, the  Lord  and  Giver  of  all  the  life  whereby,  in  man  and 
beast  alike,  all  food  is  vitalized.  The  pantheist  believes  that 
all  assimilated  food  becomes  thereby  God's  body  and  blood. 
As  consistently  with  his  own  creed  as  the  pantheist  with  ///.«? 
creed,  does  he  who  believes  that  Christ  is  God,  believe 
that  all  assimilated  food  becomes  Christ's  Body  and  Blood 
by  virtue  of  assimilation.  For  what  turns  eaten  food  into 
blood  and  into  body,  is  the  life-beat  ;  and  thrft  beat  is  thus 
to  food  a  soul,  and  food  is  to  that  beat  a  kind  of  body  ;  and 
that  beat  is  Christ's. 


SPIRITUAL  MOTION. 

The  New  Testament  is  full  of  words  implying  motion, 
presumably  spiritual.  Jesus  Christ  invites  men  to  "come" 
to  Him  ;  and  He  speaks  of  "  going  "  to  the  Father,  and  of 
the  "  way  "  to  the  Father.  He  promises  also  to  "  come  "  to 
His  disciples,  and  says  the  Holy  Breath  or  Spirit  will 
"  come  "  to  them,  and  that  He  will  u  send  "  it,  after  He  has 
"gone";  and  He  tells  the  Jews  they  cannot  "come"  t<> 
where  He  is  "going."  And  it  is  said  that  such  or  such  a 
person  was  "  moved "  to  this  or  to  that.  Now  spiritual 
coming  and  going  and  sending  and  moving  must,  if 
real,  be  like  similar  motion  in  matter,  if  motion  in 
matter  is  real.  The  only  difference  must  be  that  the  sub- 
stances which  change  situation  are  spiritual  substances  in 


324 

one  case,  and  are  natural  substances  in  the  other.  Let  us 
see  how  material  substances  move,  and  thus  we  shall  learn 
how  spiritual  substances  move.  At  least  we  cannot  learn  in 
any  other  way  ;  for  we  cannot  form  an  idea  of  the  unseen 
except  from  that  which  we  have  seen. 

For  an  example  of  the  common  idea  of  motion,  take  a 
cannon  ball  at  the  earth's  equator  and  imagine  it  to  be  shot 
due  west  some  seventeen  hundred  feet  per  second.  That 
ought  to  serve  as  an  illustration  of  motion  ;  a  shot  from  a 
fifteen-inch  gun  goes  only  two-thirds  as  fast.  But  in  truth, 
the  ball's  motion  is  absolutely  naught.  The  earth  is  wheel- 
ing just  as  rapidly  in  a  direction  precisely  opposite.  The 
cannon  ball  is  really  at  rest.  The  cannon  itself  might  bet- 
ter be  called  the  moving  body. 

Now  shoot  the  ball  some  thirty  times  faster  in  a  certain 
other  direction  which  for  brevity  we  will  call  x  y  ;  and  let 
y  x  equal  the  resultant  direction  of  the  daily  and  annual 
circlings  of  the  earth.  The  ball's  seeming  motion  will 
be  prodigious  ;  but  in  truth  it  remains  fixed.  The  earth,  as 
it  rolls  on  its  axis  and  sweeps  round  the  sun,  is  the  moving 
body  if  any  there  be.  The  ball  has  merely  ceased  to  keep 
up  with  the  earth. 

Now  shoot  the  ball  more  swiftly — perhaps  as  swiftly  as 
you  can  imagine — in  a  direction  which  we  shall  call  x  y  z ; 
and  let  z  y  x  equal  the  direction  which  is  the  resultant  and 
combination  of  both  the  terrestrial  motions  and  of  one  other 
motion  of  the  solar  system  as  yet  undetermined,  along  the 
Milky  Way  for  instance.  There  still  is  rest,  absolute  rest, 
for  the  ball ;  the  earth  and  the  sun  have  only  left  it  behind. 

Or,  if  you  will  not  be  bound  to  particular  directions,  point 
this  imaginary  gun  which  way  you  will,  and  give  the  ball 
either  more  velocity,  or  less,  or  what  velocity  you  choose,  or 
no  velocity  if  you  so  prefer.  You  still  shall  have  no  real  and 
absolute  motion.  For  that  Nothing  which  we  call  Space  is 
what  the  ball  must  move  in,  and  is  what  the  ball's  motion  must 
be  measured  by.  But  Space  has  no  centre  for  the  ball  to 


325 

go  from  ;  no  sides  for  it  to  travel  toward  ;  no  top 
to  approach  ;  no  bottom  to  near.  Motion — absolute  motion 
—requires  for  one  condition  a  point  absolutely  fixed,  which 
changes  not,  though  all  things  change,  and  which  least  of 
all  changes  at  one's  desire  ;  a  point  away  from  which  is 
always  "from,"  and  toward  which  is  always  "toward." 
You  cannot  find  any  such  point  in  Space,  and  the  reason  is 
that  you  cannot  imagine  its  existence.  Absolute  motion 
needs  a  "  from  "  and  a  c<  toward."  But  only  a  real  thing  can 
be  gone  "  from,"  or  gone  "  toward  "  ;  and  Space  is  not  a 
real  thing  :  it  is  no  thing.  Imagine  two  objects,  as  far 
apart  as  you  wish,  and  with  absolutely  nothing  between 
them.  That  nothing  is  Space  ;  and  whatever  more  than 
nothing  lies  there  between,  is  other  than  Space. 

Or,  if  reasoning  is  tiresome,  concede  your  cannon  ball  to 
have  real  motion.  And  so  that  you  may  have  a  plenty  of 
motion,  put  every  thing  else  in  motion,  and  in  the  same  di- 
rection with  the  ball,  and  at  an  equal  speed.  What  then 
becomes  of  your  motion  ?  Everything  is  now  at  rest.  If 
you  think  it  is  not  so,  define  the  motion  which  you  imagine 
will  be  then  occurring.  From  what  point  will  you  measure 
it,  when  all  points,  real  or  imaginary,  are  moving  exactly 
together — or,  better,  are  staying  together  ? 

The  truth  is,  no  spatial  motion  is  real.  It  is  only  a  seem- 
ing motion.  It  is  only  relative.  Such  motion  is  predicable 
only  of  a  body  in  relation  to  other  bodies  :  and  where  the 
relation  between  bodies  does  not  change  they  cannot  be 
said  to  be  respectively  in  motion.  Motion  which  exists 
only  by  virtue  of  comparison  is  only  imaginary  ;  because 
comparison  is  only  imaginative.  Comparison  has  no  exist- 
ence outside  the  brain. 

But  there  is  a  motion  in  matter  which  lays  a  better  claim 
to  reality.  I  say  a  better  claim  ;  and  I  leave  alone  the 
question  as  to  whether  there  is  absolutely  any  movement 
for  matter  after  its  creation,  and  whether  after  the  creative 
movement  any  further  absolute  motion  is  possible. 


326 

The  motion  in  matter  which  more  deserves  to  be  con- 
sidered real  is  chemical  movement.  It  is  a  change  in  state 
or  condition  ;  and  not  essentially  a  change  in  space  or  place. 
If  you  will  analyse  the  various  methods  of  effecting  mere 
spatial  progression,  whether  in  the  animal  world  or  in 
machinery  of  man's  making,  you  will  find  at  bottom  a 
change  of  state,  or  molecular  change,  as  the  cause  of  spatial 
progression  or  change  of  place. 

Milk  "  turns,"  yet  neither  to  the  right  hand  nor  the  left. 
Water  "  passes  "  into  steam  ;  but  the  progress  is  not  special. 
A  jar  of  preserves  when  hermetically  sealed,  will  "  stay '" 
sweet,  though  you  should  carry  it  round  the  world.  You 
cannot  produce  a  "  movement "  in  cream  by  a  mere  convey- 
ance of  the  churn  ;  the  splashing  which  the  dasher  makes 
is  not  properly  motion,  either.  But  there  is  chemical  move- 
ment when  the  butter  "  comes."  Yet  spatially  speaking, 
the  butter  has  been  there  all  the  while ;  and  as  for  its  "  com- 
ing/' it  had  before  been  really  moving  hither  unseen.  To  ob- 
serve that  it  is  coming  indicates  not  that  it  "  comes,"  but  only 
that  so  much  of  it  has  ceased  to  come,  and  in  fact  has  quite 
arrived.  Cider  "  goes  "  to  vinegar  under  certain  conditions ; 
but  it  need  not  be  carried  about.  Burning  wood  "  goes  "  to 
ashes,  although  it  is  only  the  ashes  that  stay  behind.  In 
absolute  truth  nothing  "  comes,"  unless  it  becomes.  There 
is  no  venire,  except  a  devenire.  All  genuine  movement  is 
molecular  and  chemical.  There  is  no  transit  except  transi- 
tion. There  is  no  change  of  station  unless  by  change  of 
constitution.  The  real  stand  and  position  of  everything  is 
in  its  state  only.  There  is  no  absolute  passage  save  a 
."  passing  into."  Nothing  really  "  goes,"  until  its  character- 
istics are  "  gone." 

The  laws  of  spiritual  science  and  natural  are  the  same ;  it 
is  only  the  two  kinds  of  substance  that  differ.  The  way  in 
which  a  substance  is  constituted  is  its  condition,  and  Con- 
stitution is  law  supreme.  The  laws  of  movement  in  those 
hidden  spiritual  substances  whose  manifestations  we  call 


327 

Affection  and  Thought  and  Character,  are  laws  of  spiritual 
chemistry.  What  in  matter  is  called  Motion,  in  the  spirit  is 
called  E-motion.  The  spirit  can  be  ' ;  moved"  as  well  as  the 
body.  There  is  no  local  transportation  for  soul-substance^ 
but  "transport"  instead.  Feelings  drive  to  this  and  to 
that,  but  never  through  Space.  There  is  no  advance  or 
progress  of  the  heart  except  in  organic  betterment.  There 
is  no  movement  backward  but  in  backsliding.  There  is  no 
high  place  unless  the  holy  one  ;  no  Heaven  but  in  moral  eleva- 
tion ;  no  Hell  but  in  degradation ;  no  "  pit "  but  in  the  base 
and  the  low ;  no  "  west "  but  in  spiritual  sinking  and  de- 
cline. 

They  are  "  near  "  us,  who  are  dear  to  us ;  and  those  are 
they  in  whom  like  principles  of  practice  with  our  own  have 
been  begotten ;  who  are  related  to  us  in  character  ;  whose 
conduct  is  the  offspring  of  like  motive.  Christ's  friends  are 
all  that  do  whatsoever  He  commands ;  and  to  do  this  is  to 
"  draw  nigh  unto  God."  "  Neighbors "  are  all  that  are 
neighborly ;  and  God  is  "  far  off "  from  the  wicked.  To 
"  come  to  Jesus  "  is  to  learn  of  Him  and  come  into  His 
character ;  it  is  such  a  coming  as  is  in  grape-juice  when  it 
"  comes "  to  wine.  To  go  to  Hell  and  the  Devil  is  to  go 
spiritually  mad,  infernal,  devilish.  The  Holy  Breath  or 
Spirit  "  comes  "  whenever  a  man  comes  to  breathe  truth  and 
uprightness.  Christ's  "  going  "  to  the  Father  was  chemical 
— a  coming  into  Fatherhood.  He  "  comes  "  to  a  disciple, 
whenever  He  becomes  a  second  self  there. 

If  transportation  of  the  soul  is  no  other  than  transport,  it 
still  is  not  emotionalism  nor  transport  phenomenal.  Visible 
motion  is  never  real ;  but  visible  motion  is  often  the  out- 
come of  real  motion.  Nothing  ever  broke  by  falling,  but 
only  by  ceasing  to  fall,  and  being  checked  in  its  fall.  In  the 
true  sense  a  cannon  ball  is  motionless  as  long  as  it  is  in 
flight.  When  it  stops  is  when  the  real  motion  begins  ;  this 
real  motion  consists  of  heat  and  sundry  other  movements. 
All  real  changes  are  slow  ;  by  steps  :  and  chiefly  they  are 


328 

underneath.  The  Kingdom  of  God  is  within  ;  conies  not 
with  observation.  Effects  are  outward ;  causes  are  inward.  Re- 
ward maybe  open,  but  petition  is  in  some  sense  always  of  the 
closet.  There,  in  the  closet,  in  inmost  cells,  with  doors  shut, 
beasts  and  plants  pray  silently  ;  all  visible  growth  and 
fruitage  are  their  reward. 


THE  FOUNDATION  OF  PERMANENT  KNOWLEDGE. 

All  investigation  pursued  with  the  final  aim  of  attaining 
knowledge  leads  sooner  or  later  to  the  discovery  that  the  de- 
sired knowledge  either  cannot  be  got  or  cannot  be  kept.  Simple 
and  evident  are  the  laws  which  cause  this  result ;  and  were 
mere  demonstration  enough,  men  could  easily  be  deterred 
from  that  purpose ;  might  even  be  led  to  seek  knowledge 
not  as  an  End  but  as  a  Means. 

In  the  first  place,  the  faculty  of  acquiring  information  be- 
longs to  a  region  of  the  mind  which  knows  things  only  by 
their  boundaries.  Defining  an  object  signifies  the  ascertain- 
ing of  its  surface,  rim  or  border.  Definition  passes  for  the 
same  as  "  Meaning,"  but  Meaning  is  absolutely  other  than 
Definition.  Meaning  is  that  which  a  thing  is,  through 
and  through.  Definition  is  what  it  is  as  estimated  on  its 
merest  outside  where  in  fact  it  terminates  and  ceases  to  be. 
Definition  is  like  a  wine-cask.  Meaning  is  like  a  cask  of 
wine.  The  human  mind  falls  easily  into  the  habit  of  naming 
objects  by  their  limits  or  limitations.  A  "term"  of  years 
means,  at  first  and  by  rights,  merely  the  termination 
of  a  quantity  of  time.  Now  different  quantities  of  time,  if 
they  are  co-terminous  at  their  respective  beginnings,  have 
necessarily  different  termini ;  and  so  the  name  of  the  future 


329 

end  or  terminus  of  each  suffices  to  distinguish  it ;  thus 
the  word  "  term,"  at  first  meaning  only  a  terminus,  at  List 
comes  to  mean  not  the  terminus  or  cessation  of  the  time, 
but  the  solid  time  itself.  A  child  describes  our  country 
by  saying  that  the  Atlantic  is  on  the  east,  Mexico  and 
the  Gulf  on  the  south,  the  Pacific  on  the  west,  and  s<> 
on;  and  declares  that  such  are  the  United  States.  The 
truth  is,  the  United  States  are  not  their  boundaries,  but  are 
all  that  lie  within  the  boundaries ;  the  latter  being  ideal 
nothings. 

And  thus  with  all  our  knowledge.  The  borders  of  things, 
their  mathematical  surfaces,  those  ideal  limits  of  them 
where  their  existence  really  ceases,  these  are  all  we  recog- 
nize. We  do  well  to  know  thus  much ;  it  is  much  to  say 
truly  that  we  know  about  things ;  things  themselves  we  can 
never  know.  It  is  useless  to  criticise  human  language  ;  but 
it  is  useful  to  call  to  mind  the  confessions  which  Man  involun- 
tarily makes  in  his  use  of  language. 

Inevitably  such  is  knowledge  derived  from  investigation ; 
for,  mediately  or  immediately,  all  of  it  is  based  on  impres- 
sions made  upon  the  senses.  The  facts  of  sensation 
present  an  unanswerable  argument.  What  we  obtain 
through  the  senses  is  not  the  outer  object  itself,  but  a  map, 
picture,  model  or  description  of  the  object,  stamped  upon  a 
portion  of  our  sentient  selves.  The  objects  of  vision,  for  ex- 
ample, are  never  apprehended  or  taken  into  the  organization; 
but  what  we  do  apprehend  is  an  agitation  of  the  retina  pro- 
duced by  waves  of  light  rebounding  from  the  object  beheld. 
Vision  agitates  us  as  to  the  retina  of  the  eye ;  in  vision  noth- 
ing enters  us,  not  even  the  luminif  erous  ether  ;  but  its  waves 
simply  set  the  retina  in  motion ;  and  judging,  as  we  may  do, 
about  the  object  which  reflects  the  waves  of  ether,  we  can 
judge  only  about  its  ideal  or  mathematical  surface ;  we  can 
judge  only  concerning  that  part  of  it  where  its  substance 
ceases ;  the  rest  is  matter  of  inference.  Thus,  too,  with  touch. 
The  substance  of  the  object  touched  is  no  more  transferred  to 


330 

us  than  the  substance  of  the  seal  is  transferred  to  the  wax  ,• 
that  is,  not  at  all.  Form  is  all  that  is  transferred ;  but  form 
without  substance  is  nothing.  The  substance  necessary  to 
uphold  form's  existence  must  be  ourselves.  And  just  here 
lies  the  possibility  of  the  transition  of  knowledge  out  of 
nothingness  into  soraethingness.  Only  he  who  is  what  he 
knows,  and  of  whose  substantial  self  his  knowledge  is  the 
actual  form  and  correct  description,  can  be  said  to  have 
knowledge  that  is  a  reality. 

Analysis  of  the  sense  of  smell  leads  us  to  the  same 
conclusion  ;  and  so  does  that  of  hearing.  Indeed  the  ear 
never  raises  claim  to  actual  appropriation  of  the  object 
heard.  The  vibration  of  the  ear-drum  certainly  is  not  the 
reverberation  of  the  bell  which  causes  it ;  its  motion  is 
merely  synchronous  with  that  of  the  bell ;  it  is  an  imitation  of 
bell-ringing  produced  in  the  substance  which  is  identifiable 
as  the  Me. 

The  sense  of  taste,  at  first  examination,  seems  an  excep- 
tion to  this  law  of  sensation.  Half  a  dozen  drops  of  must- 
ard placed  on  the  tongue,  although  not  swallowed,  will  soon 
bring  out  sweat  on  the  scalp.  This  looks,  at  first,  as  if 
some  substance  were  absorbed  by  the  taste-nerve.  Can  it 
be  that  here  in  Taste  we  have,  what  by  no  other  sense  can 
be  got,  a  grip  of  the  Thing-Itself ;  an  apprehension  of  what 
is  and  not  of  what  merely  SHOWS  ?  A  deep,  unconscious  phil- 
osopher was  the  Latin  savage  who  first  adopted  Taste  as  the 
name  for  Knowledge  ;  whose  sapientia  was  fundamentally 
"  tastingness."  The  same  wisdom  of  instinct  leads  the  child 
to  examine,  not  by  the  eye  nor  the  ear  nor  by  touch  nor 
smell,  but  by  taste.  For  the  absolute  Knowledge  of  a  thing- 
lies  in  making  it  a  part  of  yourself.  If  it  cannot  be  tasted, 
it  is,  indeed,  insipid ;  and  little  is  to  be  known  about  it.  "  O 
taste  and  see  that  the  Lord  is  good,"  says  David.  "  Butter 
and  honey  shall  Immanuel  eat  that  he  may  know  to  refuse 
the  evil  and  choose  the  good."  Jonathan's  eyes  were 
enlightened  because  he  tasted  a  little  of  the  honey. 


331 

Yet  we  shall  not  be  deceived  by  an  appearance.  Though 
actual  absorption  may  accompany  taste,  the  absorption  is 
into  the  clothing  of  the  taste-nerves,  not  into  the  nerves 
themselves ;  and  only  thus  is  taste  dependent  on  absorp- 
tion. In  order  to  be  tasted,  a  particle  need  only  be  borne 
against  the  nerves  of  taste,  and  impress  its  form  on  the  sur- 
face of  those  nerves.  Further  effects  form  no  part  of  the 
proper  sense  of  taste.  Only  the  outside  of  things,  their 
boundaries,  can  be  known ;  whether  by  taste  or  by  any  other 
sense.  If  we  dissect  or  break  them  into  parts,  it  still  is  only 
the  boundaries  of  those  parts  that  are  knowable.  The  knowl- 
edge of  a  boundary  is  nothing,  because  a  boundary  is  nothing 
— is  a  mere  geometrical  surface.  Knowledge  becomes  some- 
thing, and  remains  something,  only  as  far  as  it  becomes  Iden- 
tity. The  man  who  knows  must  become  identified  with 
that  which  he  knows.  There  is  a  quaint  but  ob- 
solescent use  of  the  English  word  "  know,"  which  implies 
an  intuition  of  the  truth  that  such  knowledge  as  deserves 
the  name  is  an  interior  communion  which  is  in  fact  com- 
munity, and  is  approximate  Identity.  The  essential  reason 
then  why  knowledge  sought  merely  for  its  own  sake,  is 
not  attainable  or  else  not  permanent,  is,  that  knowledge 
borne  in  upon  the  senses,  and  reasoning  built  on  such 
knowledge,  are  literally  nothing,  are  mere  ideal  superficies, 
the  negation  and  privation  of  solidity.  This  is  the  everlast> 
ing  cause  that  of  making  many  books  there  is  not  in  any  age 
an  end,  and  why  much  study  is  ever  a  weariness  of  the  flesh. 

All  such  knowledge  must  sooner  or  later  be  thrown  off. 
Even  in  the  present  world  this  gradually  takes  place,  unless 
the  forms  of  thought  are  re-impressed  from  time  to  time  by 
fresh  shocks  on  the  sensorium.  In  the  next  world  the  elimi- 
nation of  knowledge  thus  acquired  becomes  complete.  More- 
over, such  knowledge  is  the  very  reverse  of  true  knowledge. 
The  form  of  a  mould  is  at  every  point  ihe  converse  of  the 
casting.  Knowledge  impressed  from  without  is  a  mould, 
and  it  is  impressed  in  order  that  we  may  adapt  the  moral 


332 

shape  thereto,  and  acquire  from  it  a  permanent 
form,  a  form  which  then  for  the  first  time  becomes 
our  very  own.  This  latter  form  however,  by  the  law 
which  governs  cast  of  the  mind,  as  well  as  all  other 
casting,  is  the  reciprocal  of  the  form  which  brought  it  out. 
"When  the  stuff  has  hardened  into  a  solid,  the  mould  must 
be  chipped  off.  Death  does  this  by  removing  the  compara- 
tively fixed  and  unyielding  brain-forms  which  have  served  to 
give  the  pliant  mind  a  durable  figure.  The  good  man  and 
the  bad  has  each  his  own  form,  acquired  from  the  moulds  of 
the  True  and  the  False,  respectively.  But  when  these  moulds 
have  been  chipped  away,  the  truth  which  belongs  to  the 
good  man  stands  out  as  truth  proceeding  from  within,  a 
form  of  the  good  substance  within,  inseparable  therefrom ; 
a  form  not  maintained  by  shocks  upon  the  sensorium,  nor 
by  any  pressure  from  without.  And  the  false  which  be- 
longs to  the  bad  man  is  then  a  false  that  proceeds  from  with- 
in, a  form  of  the  evil  substance  within,  and  not  the  effect  of 
unfortunate  circumstance,  or  of  any  beseiging  force.  An 
esoteric  theory  of  Cognition  is  contained  in  the  sacred  books, 
and  the  rite  of  initiation  consists  in  actually  practicing  their 
contents.  "  The  fear  of  the  Lord  is  the  beginning  of  Wis- 
dom. A  good  understanding  have  all  they  that  keep  His 
commandments. "  Not  hoarding,  but  use  and  reduplication, 
secure  the  talents  eventually.  If  any  man  do  God's  will,  he 
shall  know  of  the  doctrine.  In  the  Word  is  Life,  and  the 
life  is  the  light  of  men.  Neither  sun  nor  moon  nor  outer 
reflected  ray,  but  He  who  is  the  inner  LIFE,  is  the  Light  of 
every  citizen  of  the  Holy  City.  They  who  serve  Him  shall 
have  His  name  written  in  their  foreheads — an  inscription 
effected  from  within,  as  indeed  all  writing  on  the  fore- 
head is  wont  to  be  effected.  It  is  the  pure  in  heart 
that  shall  see  God.  Not  he  that  searches  after  the 
hidden  manna,  but  he  that  overcomes,  shall  eat  of  it. 
Cognition  of  that  most  excellent  and  seemingly  inscrutable 
Ding-an-und-filr-sich,  which  is  Keality,  is  attainable  only  as 


333 

far  as  the  Me  is  converted  into  that  Reality.  Truth  cannot 
be  identified  by  ascertaining  it  to  be  the  same  with  this  or 
with  that,  but  by  making  identical  with  Truth  the  Me. 
An  inexorable  law  governing  the  cognition  of  external  exis- 
tence, or  the  external  cognition  of  existence,  is  that  what  is 
cognized  be  outside  of  us,  and  that  its  form  become  our 
form,  but  derived  from  without.  And  an  inexorable  lawr  in 
the  cognition  of  internal  existence,  or  in  the  internal  cogni- 
tion of  existence,  is  that  whatever  is  cognized  be  within  us,  and 
that  its  form  become  our  form,  yet  from  within.  Howsoever 
knowledge  may  be  attached  to  a  man,  or  a  man  be  attached  to 

knowledge be  it  by  memory,  by  worldly  interest,  by  social 

affection,  ancestral  pride  and  reverence,  by  force  of  authority 

or  even  by  intellectual  appreciation, all  these  bonds  must 

in  this  life  steadily  be  dissolving  and  in  the  other  life  be  ab- 
solutely dissolved.  With  men  who  do  not  verily  become 
their  knowledge,  the  House  of  knowledge  is  built  on  sand. 
With  men  who  obey  the  commands  of  knowledge  it  is 
built  on  rock.  The  reason  is  that  this  rock  is  formed  in 
man  by  only  a  real  activity  with  him,  and  itself  is  the  ulti- 
mate outcome  of  activity,  a  real  substance,  a  secretion  preci- 
pitated out  of  Will-force  into  his  outer  nature.  All  acquire- 
ments from  without  are  at  bottom  mere  modifications  in  the 
matters  of  the  physical  brain.  And  the  ever-battering 
storm  of  physical  disintegration  accompanied  by  reparation 
and  accession  of  fresh  matters  from  the  world,  and  at  last 
the  hurricane  of  Death,  sweep  all  these  back  into  the  world 
again.  The  sole  natural  and  well-nigh  material  substance 
that  man  carries  into  the  other  life  is  the  Will  -stuff  in  him 
which  has  stiffened  and  solidified  into  a  stuff  as  fixed  as  that 
of  which  matter  is  composed.  Whatever  types  have  been 
formed  in  this  psychological  secretion  then  remain  and  form 
the  outline  of  Thought ;  no  types  formed  elsewhere  remain. 
Both  typically  and  literally  this  substance  consists  of  deter- 
minations of  the  Will ;  is  the  actual  terminus  of  the  Will ; 
makes  skull  and  ribs  and  skin  as  it  were  ;  is  his  bone  ;  his 


334 

microcosm's  primordial  rock ;  the  "  horn  of  strength ;  "  is 
an  actual  phosphate  or  silicate  evolved  out  of  spiritual  sub- 
stance. Will-stuff  spiritual,  passing  over  into— -and  itself 
becoming — an  element,  however  minute,  in  Nature,  is  ab- 
solutely the  incarnation  or  outbirth  of  Man ;  the  flesh  he 
gathers  from  the  elements  of  nature  is  but  the  caul ;  Man's 
internal  acts  form  this  substance  ;  it  is  a  book  which  he  is 
always  making,  and  from  which  he  will  be  judged  because  it 
is  from  him  and  is  he.  In  every  one  that  "  overcomes,"  this 
evolved  substance  is  the  Bock  on  which  every  lasting  House 
must  be  based ;  is  the  white  Stone,  wherein  is  written  a  new 
name  knowable  by  him  only  that  receives  it,  and  by  him  only 
because  that  Stone  is  a  growth  and  formation,  and  not  a  sub- 
stance foreign  or  added  from  without.  Be  it  white  or  black, 
nothing  is  written  on  it  unless  written  from  within.  From 
within,  the  birds  and  lilies  obtain  their  colors,  nay,  their  sub- 
stantial clothing.  Seek  first  the  Kingdom  of  God  and  His  right- 
eousness ;  the  raiment  of  the  mind  shall  be  added  from  with- 
in ;  consider  the  birds  and  the  lilies.  The  only  use  of  truth 
learned  from  without  is  that  its  form  may  be  reproduced 
from  within ;  and  this  reproduction  is  effected  only  by  the 
practicing  of  it.  Phylacteries  of  knowledge  are  well,  excel- 
lent ;  yet  the  wisest  counsel  is  to  buy  white  raiment  in  order 
to  be  forever  clothed.  Only  combat  can  purchase  that  rai- 
ment ;  only  they  that  overcome  obtain  it.  Virtue  must  be 
married  to  Knowledge ;  practice  to  theory.  Such  wisdom  as 
is  one  with  Deed  is  the  wedding  garment,  and  in  this  world 
it  must  be  donned ;  else  the  soul  is  bound  hand  and  foot  by 
its  lusts,  and  at  last  is  hurled  centrifugally  into  darkness  on 
the  outskirts  of  the  world  in  which  Minds  dwell. 


335 
SHINING  LIGHTS. 

The  light  of  Church  members  must  shine  among  men. 
This  is  commanded.  All  the  Church  agrees  to  this.  But 
how  shall  it  shine  I  There  are  two  views,  broadly  divergent. 
One  of  them  is  nearly  universal.  The  other  is  held  by  a  few 
outside  the  Church,  and  by  fewer  still  within  it — I  mean  the 
Christian  Church  in  general — and  by  nobody  is  it  clearly 
stated.  It  is  a  feeling,  or  a  leaning,  rather  than  an  opinion. 
Eithei  view  is  justified  by  the  wording.  Men  differ. 
Nothing  means  quite  the  same  with  any  two  persons.  The 
light  of  believers  is  to  shine  among  men.  Seemingly  there 
are  several  ways  of  shining.  But  believers  are  to  shine  in 
one  particular  way  ;  men  must  see  (not  their  light,  but)  their 
good  works.  Having  seen  not  that  but  these,  men  shall 
glorify  the  Father  in  heaven. 

According  to  the  prevailing  theory,  "  light "  is  Christian 
character.  To  the  world,  and  especially  to  those  who  do  not 
belong  to  the  Church,  the  piety  and  charity  of  Christian 
men  and  women  are  to  be  made  manifest.  Then  the  world, 
the  unbelieving  world,  will  trace  these  things  to  Christian 
character,  as  to  lamps  men  trace  illumination  ;  and  all  who 
have  the  right  thing  in  them  will  thereupon  believe  and 
worship.  Moreover  in  every  upright  heart,  there  springs  up 
a  certain  thankfulness  to  God  for  all  works  of  righteousness ; 
and  this  thankfulness,  still  or  outspoken,  is  itself  a  glorifica- 
tion of  the  Lord. 

I  like  the  prevailing  theory.  I  accept  it.  I  do  not  praise 
it,  for  it  is  above  all  praise.  The  other  and  rarer  way  of 
thinking,  or  rather,  as  I  said,  of  feeling,  is  opposed  to  it  in 
terms,  but  not  in  truth.  I  like  the  latter  also,  and  I  accept 
it,  but  it  is  lofty  above  all  definition,  leastwise  for  me  ;  it  is 
Divine. 

The  "light"  meant  in  this  passage  is  not  Christian 
character.  The  best  of  men,  believers  or  unbelievers,  are 
not  bright  enough  to  shine.  They  have  never  shone.  At 


336 

no  time,  and  under  no  circumstances  will  they  with  absolute 
truth  have  any  sheen.  There  is  none  that  does  good,  no  not 
one  ;  and  the  angels  He  charges  with  folly.  The  only  light 
is  the  Divine  Man  himself,  and  solely  in  darkness  and 
without  aid  of  other  lights,  rival  or  friendly,  does  He  beam. 
"  Light  "  is  truth  divine.  That  is  the  true  light  which  en- 
lightens every  man  that  comes  into  the  world.  Not  to  be 
stared  upon  and  gaped  at,  like  falling  stars  by  an  idiot,  does 
it  shine  into  men's  dark  minds  ;  but  to  the  end  that  they 
shall  the  less  stumble  over  rocks  and  into  pitfalls,  and  that 
there  may  be  daylight  wherein  work  can  be  wrought  out  be- 
fore the  night  come.  Therefore  it  is  said  that  this  light — 
the  kind  and  measure  of  it  given  to  Christians — is  so  to 
shine  that  not  itself,  but  the  good  works  done  by  it,  may  be 
seen.  For  unless  the  Light — the  ideal,  whatever  it  be, 
which  a  man  possesses — be  acted  upon  and  turned  into 
Conduct  and  practice,  his  light  is  darkness.  Not  otherwise 
can  truth  from  God  make  to  God's  praise.  In  the  bringing 
forth  of  fruit  it  is  that  the  Father  is  glorified,  and  the  only 
disciples  are  performers.  To  call  Lord,  Lord,  is  not  surely 
glorification  ;  but  doing  what  He  says  is  profound  obei- 
sance. 

In  the  inner  and  outer  world  alike,  the  Sun  of  Righteous- 
ness, shining  on  trees  of  righteousness,  begets  fruits  of 
righteousness.  In  either  the  universe  of  matter  or  of 
mind,  the  true  splendor  of  the  light  lies  not  in  glitter,  but  in 
actinism.  The  grain  and  grass  glorify  their  flaming  father 
in  the  sky  with  greater  glory  than  do  fiery  clouds  and  golden 
sunsets.  The  talkers  of  religion  are — as  talkers — like 
broken  bits  of  looking-glass  which  you  shall  often  see  twink- 
ling out  of  heaps  of  refuse  ;  bright  enough  and  well-nigh 
useless.  The  plant  world,  without  glare,  glorifies  its  father 
sun  with  exceeding  great  glory  ;  the  growth  of  the  plants 
is  itself  that  glory. 

As  for  "sight"  and  "seeing,"  the  true  deep  meaning  of 
these  words  is  not  known  to  many.  Real  sight  is  a  solid. 


337 

and  not  a  surface ;  the  nervous  system  through  and  through 
trembles  to  the  quivering  ether  upon  the  retina ;  and  the 
single  eye  fills  the  whole  body  with  light.  Shall  he  that  runs 
from  battle  and  watches  it  out  of  a  tree-top  be  said  to  "  see  " 
the  wars  I  Was  it  in  lazy  contemplation,  or  with  forceful 
action,  that  the  old  Shaper  "  saw  "  His  work  that  it  was  good  ? 
Who  shall  "  see  "  the  great  golden  town  come  down  to  earth 
but  he  who  sees  that  it  sink  into  his  own  earthly  nature  ?  As 
the  trees  and  crops  see  the  sun's  deeds  in  summer  and  at 
harvest,  shall  the  world  "  see  the  good  works  "  brought  forth 
by  "  light,"  and  glorify  the  Father.  "Seeing  "  means  experi- 
encing. Other  sight  is  visionary.  It  is  mostly  of  naught ;  and 
mostly  it  comes  to  naught.  "  Good  works  "  consist  for  the 
most  part  in  the  square  and  diligent  and  thorough  discharge 
of  the  duties  of  any  honest  calling ;  consists  in  such  a  dis- 
charge of  them  from  God,  with  God  and  to  God.  There  is 
not  much  emotion  in  this  life  of  good  works,  but  there  is  a 
great  deal  of  worship. 


WOKKS  AND  GREATER  WORKS. 

"  He  that  believeth  on  me,  the  works  that  I  do  he  too 
shall  do ;  and  greater  than  these  shall  he  do,  because  I  am 
going  to  the  Father "  (John  xiv:  12).  The  difficulty  some- 
times found  in  this  passage  does  not  exist  in  the  original. 
The  word  "  these  "  does  not  refer  to  the  works  that  Jesus 
Christ  was  doing,  but  to  the  works  that  the  believer  in 
Him  was  to  do.  The  Greek  word  means  properly  "  the 
latter,"  or  "  the  last-mentioned,"  that  is,  the  believer's  doings. 
The  Christian's  achievements  shall  be  of  two  kinds ;  and  one 


338 

kind  will,  for  the  reason  given  in  the  text,  be  greater  than 
the  other.     The  analysis  seems  clearly  to  be  this : 

1.  The  believer  shall  do  sundry  works. 

2.  The  believer  shall  also  do  greater  works. 

3.  The  believer's  first-mentioned  works   are  to  be  of  the 
same  sort  as  Jesus  Christ's  had  been  up  to  that  time. 

4.  The  fact  that  Jesus  Christ  is  going  to  the  Father  will 
produce  the  effect  of  rendering  the  believer's  last-mentioned 
works  greater  than  his  first. 

It  is  said  that  the  believer's  former  works  were  to  be 
Christ's  works.  This  means,  not  that  the  works  of  the  two 
are  identical,  but  that  they  are  similar  in  kind.  Whatever 
Jesus  Christ's  were  for  Him  and  in  Him,  the  believer's 
would  be  for  him  and  in  him.  Those  of  the  former  were 
infinite  because  He  is  infinite  ;  those  of  the  latter  would  be 
finite  because  he  is  finite. 

The  reason  why  "  going  to  the  Father  "  would  cause  the 
believer's  latter  works  to  be  greater  than  his  former  ones,  is 
found  in  the  same  chapter.  If  the  disciples  loved  Him  they 
would  be  rejoiced  to  know  that  He  was  going  to  the  Father, 
because  His  Father  is  greater  than  He  (v.  28).  This  "  going 
to  the  Father  "  was  a  transition,  not  in  space,  but  in  state,  in 
character,  in  constitution.  The  Father  is  omnipresent,  and 
no  one  can  come  nearer  Him  than  before,  except  he  "  draw 
nigh  to  God. "  Jesus  Christ  was  to  rise  into  the  Father's 
condition.  This  would  be  a  greater  or  higher  condition  than 
He  was  then  in ;  and  all  who  loved  Him  would  be  glad  of 
the  change,  because  it  was  for  the  higher  and  greater.  The 
means  by  which  this  rise  to  the  Highest  would  render  the 
works  of  the  believer  greater  than  they  had  been  before,  are 
described  in  the  same  Gospel.  "It  is  expedient  for  you 
that  I  go  away ;  for  if  I  go  not  away,  the  Comforter  will  not 
come  unto  you;  but  if  I  depart  I  will  send  him  unto  you" 
(xvi:  7).  It  was  the  Comforter  that  should  "  guide  them 
into  all  truth  "  (xvi:  13),  and  f<  teach  them  all  things"  (xvi: 


339 

26);  and  before  the  Comforter  could  "  come,"  Jesus  Christ 
must  "  go." 

The  works  of  Jesus  Christ  before  He  ascended  into  Father- 
hood, in  general  stand  for  His  dealings  with  the  evils  exist- 
ing in  the  fallen  human  nature  He  had  taken  upon  Him ;  and 
these  works  consisted  in  overcoming  and  expelling  those 
evils.  The  "  greater  works  than  these"  (v.  20)  which  the 
Father  was  to  show  Him — works  so  great  that  men 
would  marvel — are  the  works  He  does  after  attaining  to  the 
Father.  These  last  have  no  concern  with  any  evil  in  His 
nature,  for  all  evil  had  been  cast  out ;  they  had  only  to  do 
with  goodness  there  which  had  replaced  the  evil.  "  Great " 
works  are  those  that  proceed  from  good  ;  that  is,  from  gen- 
uine love,  and  are  themselves  good ;  the  essential  of  moral 
greatness  in  any  deed  is  the  goodness  in  it ;  otherwise  a 
thing  is  hollow  and  therefore  not  great. 

These  two  kinds  of  works  are  effected  in  every  believer. 
The  first  kind  are  negative ;  are  works  of  abstention  from 
evil.  The  outline  of  them  is  the  •'  Shalt  not  "  of  the  Deca- 
logue. The  second  works  come  as  soon  and  as  far  as  Divine 
truths  are  fairly  "  laid  to  heart "  by  the  believer,  become  the 
veiy  source  of  all  his  actions,  and  grow  into  parent  principles 
in  him,  or  in  other  words,  "  go  to  the  Father."  Thither — 
to  the  Father — Jesus  Christ  in  a  finite  sense  is  going  in  the 
soul  of  every  believer ;  and  the  transition  thither  takes 
place  as  far  as  the  believer's  intellectual  conformity  to  truth 
passes  into  an  inner  and  outer  practising  of  it.  Before  this, 
his  works  are  not  "  great,"  that  is,  not  good  ;  but  after  this 
they  are  great.  And  both  before  and  after,  his  works  are 
the  outcome  of  certain  forces  within  him  which  proceed  con- 
stantly from  the  ascended  Christ. 

The  rule  as  to  these  two  states  and  processes  is  universal 
and  familiar ;  and  so  are  the  states  and  processes.  No  one 
while  he  is  learning  the  rudiments  of  an  art — be  it  painting, 
or  sculpture,  or  music,  or  even  some  common  trade — can  do 
its  works  as  well  as  after  he  has  learned.  At  first  he  must 


340 

work  by  rules  implanted  in  the  memory,  and  with  travail 
and  with  pain.  Not  before  all  his  externally  acquired  lore 
"  ascends  to  the  Father  " — passes  up  into  the  Unconscious  in 
him  where  rules  are  converted  into  instincts  and  whence 
only  comes  inspiration — does  the  Spirit  of  his  art  possess 
him,  and  teach  him  all  things,  bring  all  things  with  new 
meaning  to  his  remembrance,  guide  him  into  all  truth  of 
his  art,  and  ever  show  him  things  yet  to  come  therein. 
There  is  no  other  way  to  arrive  at  "  great "  works,  master- 
pieces. 

And  here  all  Christendom  is  in  error.  Men  think  they 
can  reach  the  heights  of  Love,  merely  by  practising  deeds 
of  love  and  without  passing  through  apprenticeship.  The 
one  indispensable  process,  Repentance — the  searching  out 
and  shunning  of  evils  in  self  as  being  sins  against  God — the 
process  which  makes  "  great "  works  possible,  is  distasteful. 
Some  great  thing  Naaman  would  have  done  swiftly,  but 
washing  was  not  a  great  thing.  Men  are  willing  to  come  to 
the  heavenly  feast  if  they  can  sit  down  first  in  an  upper 
room.  The  young  ruler  asks  what  good  may  purchase 
eternal  life,  but  learns  that  abstention  from  evil  is  chiefly 
necessary ;  and  proving  himself  within  two  minutes  to  be  in 
some  measure  a  liar,  a  thief  and  a  miser,  departs  in  sorrow 
on  being  shown  a  way  to  gratify  benevolent  desires.  And 
thus  it  must  be  always,  until  men  know  for  certain  that  all  that 
is  really  good  must  be  more  than  artificial ;  must  be  engen- 
dered in  the  Unconscious  where  God  begets  it,  and  thence 
descend  into  thought  and  act ;  that  the  Unconscious  must 
be  purified  from  hatred  and  evil  before  love  and  good  can 
come  forth  from  it ;  that  unless  the  Conscious  is  purified  by 
man's  cooperation  with  God,  the  Unconscious  cannot  be  made 
pure  by  God ;  that  God  cleanses  the  latter  as  fast  as  man 
cleanses  the  former,  no  faster ;  and  that  the  first  and  lesser 
works  of  Repentance  must  be  performed  before  the  second 
and  greater  works  of  genuine  Love  are  possible.  Always 
it  must  be  thus,  until  men  know  that  the  heart  and  not  the 


341 

intellect  is  the  main-spring  ;  that  the  Good  is  heart-sub- 
stance, and  is  not  an  apparition  projected  from  the  intellect ; 
that,  like  all  substantial  things,  the  Good  has  not  only  its 
interiors  in  which  it  is,  but  also  its  very  outmosts  where  it 
ceases  to  be  ;  that  only  through  the  outmosts  where  it  is  not, 
can  Love's  inside  be  really  come  at  ;  that  the  full-containing 
walls  of  the  New  Jerusalem  are  such  by  virtue  of  forbidding 
and  exclusive  external  salient  angles  ;  that  the  Love  which  at 
last  works  good  to  the  neighbor  from  delight,  begins  with 
working  no  ill  to  the  neighbor — thus  begins  with  self-restraint 
and  undelight  ;  and  that  the  heart  cannot  be  filled  with 
what  is  promised  in  the  two  great  commands  "  Thou  shalt," 
except  as  far  as  it  is  emptied  of  what  is  forbidden  in  the 
ten  laws  "  Thou  shalt  not."  I  know  it  will  be  denied  that 
nine-tenths  of  the  Decalogue  are  prohibitory  and  only  pro- 
hibitory ;  and  I  know  it  will  be  denied  that  in  spirit  the  re- 
maining tenth  is  very  largely  prohibitory  and  ever  grows 
more  prohibitory  as  riper  years  advance.  This  nevertheless 
is  true.  And  still  it  is  a  principle  which  should  be  applied 
toward  a  furtherance  of  the  Good  itself,  and  not  of  the  True 
alone.  The  Word  contains  commands  to  acts  of  benefaction  ; 
and  these  are  interpretable  as  compulsory  edicts ;  albeit  true 
charity's  whole  compulsory  force  is  from  within,  and  is  love 
itself  compelling — is  the  love  of  others  which  compels,  and 
does  not  spring  in  the  least  from  hope  of  reward  or  from 
dread  of  the  penalties  of  disobedience.  The  truth  is,  men 
know  not  what  manner  of  spirit  they  inwardly  are  of.  In 
some,  their  outward  and  conscious  intent  is  the  same  in  char- 
acter as  their  spirit  within  ;  and  in  others  it  is  of  an  opposite 
character  to  the  spirit  within.  There  are  many  who  do  deeds 
of  benefaction,  doing  them  either  under  compulsion  of  com- 
mand, or  from  the  impulse  of  promised  reward ;  not  having 
in  their  hearts  the  love-principle  which  alone  constitutes 
within  a  deed  the  quality  of  goodness.  There  are  many  who 
do  deeds  of  benefaction,  and  who  seem  to  themselves  as  act- 
ing under  compulsion,  or  else  for  reward,  and  not  as  acting 


342 

from  very  love ;  but  who  yet,  far  back  in  the  unconscious 
mind,  possess  a  real  love  of  others  which  prompts  those  acts, 
and  which — for  an  ally  in  its  struggle  against  the  selfishness 
of  the  lower  and  conscious  nature — lays  hold  of  the  compul- 
sory command  in  the  lower  and  conscious  memory,  and  in 
the  lower  and  conscious  mind  lays  hold  also  of  the  promise 
of  reward  or  of  some  fear  of  penalty,  and  wills  to  work  for  its 
own  ends  and  purposes  that  memory  and  that  promise  and 
that  fear.  Between  the  former  class  and  the  latter  class 
(who  alike  do  deeds  of  benefaction,  and  who  do  those  deeds 
from  motives  wholly  alike,  so  far  as  their  motives  come  to 
consciousness  or  knowledge),  there  is  all  the  breadth  of 
spiritual  gulf  that  lies  between  Hell  and  Heaven.  The 
shunning  of  evils  as  sins  is  what  has  made  an  inward  uncon- 
scious heaven  in  the  latter  ;  and  the  not  shunning  of  evils 
as  sins  is  what  has  kept — and  has  swollen — an  unconscious 
hell  within  the  former.  Furthermore  :  of  those  who  have 
not  yet  learned  to  shun  evils  as  sins,  some  may  later  in  life 
learn  so  to  shun  them ;  but  in  order  to  this  end,  and  as 
drawing  towards  this  end,  a  man's  practice  of  benefactions 
may  be  serviceable  to  him.  Many  a  man  would  rush  in- 
wardly, though  not  outwardly,  into  every  evil  of  spirit  and 
hidden  intention,  were  the  disguise  of  seeming  charity 
plucked  from  him  which  has  served  to  hide  him  from  him- 
self. Of  the  Divine  Foresight  it  therefore  comes  that  the 
wheat  and  the  tares  are  sometimes  suffered  to  grow  together 
in  the  mind  till  harvest,  lest  in  rooting  up  the  tares  the 
wheat  be  rooted  up  also.  The  two  general  orders  whereby 
men  are  ordered  heaven-ward,  are,  first,  Cease  to  do  evil ; 
second,  Learn  to  do  well.  If  a  third  order  there  be,  it 
surely  is  this,  Cease  to  do  evil.  The  Christian  clergy  do  not 
understand  this  matter;  and  therefore  it  is  the  churches 
themselves  that  so  largely  furnish  the  embezzlers,  the  de- 
faulters and  all  the  kinds  of  trust-breakers.  The  clergy 
teach  "  Thou  shalt ;"  they  mostly  give  the  go-by  to  "  Thou 
Shalt  not ;  "  this  last  seems  to  them  half-ascetic  and 


343 

as  unfit  food  for  hearts  that  bound  toward  all.  Moreover 
"  Thou  shalt,"  brings  swift  and  obvious  results ;  and  most 
men  regard  the  obvious.  Nor  do  the  present  reformers  of 
church  doctrine,  wise  as  many  of  them  may  be,  quite  under- 
stand this  matter.  In  the  worthier  pictures  of  the  Divine 
character  which  they  are  learning  to  draw,  we  can  find  in 
some  sense  a  veritable  second  coming  of  the  Lord ;  for  a 
nearer  knowledge  of  Him  is,  in  a  measure,  a  bringing  of 
Him  nearer.  Yet  the  truth  is  everlasting,  that  unless 
the  way  be  prepared  before  Him,  His  coming  can 
only  smite  with  a  curse.  "Thou  shalt  not"  is  the 
prophet — the  more  than  prophet — that  prepares  that 
way ;  for  this  is  he  that  washes  with  water  unto  repentance. 
Until  a  man  learns  to  search  his  conduct,  both  internal 
and  external,  under  the  light  of  the  ten  prohibitory 
but  non-ascetic  laws,  and  in  some  degree  purge  his  inner 
and  outer  life  according  to  these  laws,  it  may  be  better  for 
him  to  know  God  for  other  than  the  Being  of  sheer  and 
boundless  Love  towards  angels  and  devils  alike,  which  in- 
deed He  cannot  but  be.  Assuredly  till  then,  a  man  will 
abuse  all  just  knowledge  of  God.  Therefore  God  vari- 
ously vails  Himself  from  age  to  age,  and  ever  adapts  to 
various  beholders  His  manifestation.  It  is  with  the  merciful 
only  that  without  harm-bringing  He  can  show  Himseli 
merciful ;  with  an  upright  man  only  will  he  show  Himseli 
upright ;  with  only  the  pure,  pure  ;  and  with  the  froward 
He  will  in  mercy  and  most  towardly  show  Himself  froward. 
It  may  be  good  for  the  wicked  that,  like  church-folk  of  the 
past,  he  should  think  that  God  is  altogether  such  a  one  as 
himself — vain,  self-seeking  and  revengeful.  Let  the  re- 
formers begin  where  real  reformation  must  begin,  and 
ripen  thus  the  time  ;  the  Scourer  first  must  come  ;  for  the 
most  it  is  not  yet  glad  Yule-time  ;  a  full  half-year  before- 
hand is  John's  day,  until  which  all  prophets  prophesy. 


344 
AN  AFTER- WORD. 

Witless  of  all  things  a  man  is  born  into  this  world,  and 
witless  of  most  things  he  stays  until  he  is  borne  out  of  it. 
Yet  the  things  which  are  in  the  Maker,  and  which  from  Him 
have  come  into  the  men  that  He  has  made,  are  so  boundless 
and  so  utterly  not  the  same,  that  it  comes  about  that  no  two 
men  are  evenly  witless  on  the  whole,  nor  witless  of  even  the 
same  things ;  but  some  are  more  witless  of  one  thing  and 
some  of  another.  Out  of  this  fact,  by  means  of  contact,  by 
means  of  mutual  criticism,  and  through  amendment  after 
criticism,  comes  all  progress  in  society.  Hereby  comes  civil- 
ization, and  hereby  all  true  cooperation.  When,  if  ever,  this 
cooperation  shall  extend  to  book-making,  truly  then  shall  books 
become  articles  of  value.  Then  the  here-and-there  emptiness 
of  a  writer  shall  here  and  there  be  pieced  out  by  fullness  on 
the  part  of  some  reader ;  errors,  and  many  of  them,  shall  be 
corrected;  and  a  writer  then  shall  no  more  hold  himself 
bound  to  stand  by  a  first  edition  of  his  book  than  by  his  gal- 
ley proofs. 

The  matters  of  which  I  have  written  are  of  interest  to  but 
few ;  and  fewer  yet  will  have  been  willing  to  read  my  book 
thus  far.  If  there  be  any  such,  and  if  any  one  of  them  can 
help  me  by  pointing  out  any  of  its  surely-existing  equivo- 
ques, dark  places,  fatal  omissions,  mistakes  and  falsehoods,  I 
shall  be  thankful  for  such  help.  If — but  this  wish  is  idle — 
a  considerable  number  of  readers  should  thus  give  help,  I 
have  little  doubt  that  in  a  second  edition,  it  might  even  be- 
come a  book  of  some  small  use.  Thus  far  I  have  thought 
best  to  write  anonymously,  out  of  respect  to4he  warning  given 
to  shoemakers ;  yet  now  hoping  to  get  help,  let  me  say  that 
communications  may  be  addressed  to  Don  Fulano  Tal,  at  the 
house  indicated  on  the  title  page. 


345 


"  Arise,  shine  ;  for  thy  light  is  come,  and  the  glory  of  the 

Lord  is  risen  upon  thee Lift  up  thine  eyes 

round  about,  and  see:  all  they  gather  themselves  together, 
they  come  to  thee:  thy  sons  shall  come  from  far,  and  thy 
daughter fs  shall  be  nursed  at  thy  side The  abund- 
ance of  the  sea  shall  be  converted  unto  thee,  the  forces  of  the 

Gentiles  shall  come  unto  thee And  the  sons  of 

strangers  shall  build  up  thy  walls,   and  their  kings  shall 

minister  unto  thee The  glory  of  Lebanon  shall 

come  unto  thee,  the  fir  tree,  the  pine  tree,  and  the  box  to- 
gether, to  beautify  the  place  of  my  sanctuary  ;  and  I  will 
make  the  place  of  my  feet  glorious  ....  For  brass  I 
will  bring  gold,  and  for  iron  I  will  bring  silver  ;  and  for 
wood  brass,  and  for  stones  iron :  I  will  also  make  thy  officers 
peace,  and  thine  exactors  righteousness" 


r    ^  THf  „ 

[UNIVERSITY] 


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expiration  of  loan  period. 


NOVf  8  1920 

Atja   ^  3921 

DEC  1 
APR  19  1946 


50m-7,'16 


186718.* 


